Adam Shankman, director of the 2001 hit film, The Wedding Planner, has announced plans to make a sequel, which will reportedly be produced by Madonna. As a Certified Wedding Planner, you can expect another influx of people wanting to enter the field and increased interest in brides and grooms considering hiring you.
Amidst all the impending hoopla, how does the experienced CWP stand out and show the value of your knowledge and know-how? How do you differentiate your services and results so that your prospective clients find you and not the hobbyist with little training, but tons of inspired confidence?
Brides and grooms today are interested in competence and efficiency. They are using the Internet to research financing, venues, and everything in between. They are also learning about the good and the bad of hiring a wedding planner.
You have the expertise. You know how to find the perfect, unique venue and even how to get the groom involved in planning. The question you have to answer is: Why should a bride and groom hire you?
The wedding blogosphere is filled with attempts to answer this question. At Wedding Planning News, Ideas and Answers, brides and grooms are given a quiz to find out if they should hire a wedding planner. On Wedding by Color, a recent blog entry addresses brides that feel like they were behind in their planning and do not know where to start. The 3 O’ Clock Wedding site features an article titled “How Wedding Planners Help Couples Deal with a Challenging Event.”
Most CWP veterans are using websites and blogs to help establish their value to their clients. Whether you find your prospects through the Internet, word-of-mouth, or more traditional advertising, your job and your business success depends on your ability to communicate your value to the potential client in your first meeting.
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2 comments:
There are some keys areas that are important to touch on when selling yourself in that first meeting. A few are the time and money you can save the client when they don't try to do it themselves, the fact that you are on the cutting edge of the industry's trends and information and your expertise in finding and negotiating with quality vendors. Finally as a trained and certified wedding planner you bring with you a credibility that others will not have.
I am a current student of The Wedding Planning Institute and will soon be a Certified Wedding Planner. The knowledge I have gained through this course definitely places me above other planners without an intensive education as the WPI offers. A client will not only save money, by not trying to do it themselves, but by also hiring a CWP. A planner without the right training could potential cost a client a lot more money than planned for. I feel that becoming a CWP with WPI will give me that advantage over my competition and give me the confidence to excel.
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