In last weeks post, I promised to share the Price Deflector template that my students and I use to deflect the price question when asked too soon by engaged couples.

I created the template (initially for myself) because I found whenever I quoted before explaining my value, typically just 2/10 couples booked. The eight that did not said the cost of my service was above their budget. But whenever I met to explain my value first, 8/10 booked saying I was exactly what they were looking for.

Because price-shoppers are not my target audience, I am prepared to let them go early by using the Price deflector as a filter.

If your prices are much higher than average, and you prefer to meet before quoting, download and customise the Price Deflector from this link because it's an elegant way to get couples back into your marketing funnel. This paves the way to for you to price reveal AFTER you've expressed the emotional benefits loaded in your offer, which benefits you, and not...

There are a lot of frustrations going on inside a couples head when planning their wedding.

Typically, they have to source around 20 suppliers for their wedding, often with minimal professional wedding planning experience.

And when you factor in couples will probably choose from a minimum of 3 suppliers in each category, that's at least 60 initial enquiries (generating at least 60 responses) to simply get their wedding in motion. It's no wonder couples use pricing for whittling down the fatigue of sourcing wedding suppliers.

Recall some of the language couples have used on you in the past, for example: "Can you give me an idea of your price first as I don't want to waste your time?" What they really mean is they don't want to waste THEIR time if you fall outside their initial budget.

But this approach is flawed, especially if you are justifiably more expensive.

Seek first to understand, before being understood - Stephen Covey

A couples initial budget for your services is often...

Two weeks ago, I promised to reveal the winning formula for a wedding website that converts, here it is:

If your site tries to appeal to all, instead of to your ideal couple, you will inadvertently attract price shoppers and repel the higher paying couples you want to book, locking you in an awful 'Catch 22' cycle. To break-out, there is no better starting place than this quote:

So what THINKING did you use when you began to inadvertently appeal to price shoppers?

Let's Begin With Design

Let us say you deliver a 5/5 service, but your poorly designed website wrongly implies its only 3/5. The ambiguity in your message will result in your target audience side-stepping you because of a failure to resonate with their needs, however price shoppers may get in touch because your 'look and feel' may appeal to them.

Your Website Will Underperform If:

1. Your landing page headline does not match the message to the ideal couple you ...

Discover how to  to maximise the return on you wedding fair investment in just 3 minutes and 46 seconds.

The reality is the barriers to entry for many wedding industries are practically non existent today, for example anyone with a digital camera and some software can become a wedding photographer.

Gone are the days where a shopfront premises are required or specialist dark room skills. Digital has removed the friction, or put another way, digital has removed many of the expert skills and heavy investment required from a bygone era. Digital has made becoming a photographer so much easier. And this is why the market is flooded. It’s happening world-wide. In short, digital has let the genie out of the bottle, and it’s never going back in.

If you are a videographer, cake maker, stationer, make-up artist, hairdresser, musician, DJ, toastmaster (and this list is by no means extensive)… cases for concern can be made for your industry as well.

So how do you cope in the new world where weekend warriors and coffee shop wannabes enter your market and compete with inferior...

Join me in Dubai this October for my talk on the secrets to getting booked by your ideal brides and grooms.

Do you have a wedding marketing question you'd love answered? I often get asked similar questions in different ways. I'll share the most popular here. Check back for updates periodically:

Hi Terry, I currently average 45 plus weddings per year, though its a lot, I contribute it to my pricing being competitive for the quality I provide. My sales last year was upward of $180k.

The biggest frustration in this business right now specially in my city (Florida) is the weekend warriors. Digital has made it easier for someone to pickup a camera , shoot a ton of photos, edit and filter the heck out of the photos and they are getting paid even more than what I charge. As a full time photographer for over 20 years with a brick and mortar location in a well established wedding area, I see more and more go to the coffee shop photographers, taking a bite of our business here for the true professionals.

Churches here have also put stronger restrictions on shooting as these not...