UKAWP - THE LEADING INDUSTRY BODY FOR THE UK WEDDING PLANNING MARKET

Archive for July, 2009

How running your own business can be hard …

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Today we hear from UKAWP member, Simone Butterfield of Dimples Events on a very topical issue:

In light of the recent outbreak of swine flu, it has made me reflect upon the benefits of belonging to the UK Alliance of Wedding Planners. Despite ensuring that my sister in law is fluent in wedding planning and ready to step up to the mark for any unfortunate circumstances, it has been a god send to know that I can pick up the phone and count on the help of fellow members of the UKAWP if ever I was unable to attend a wedding.

Running your own business can be stressful and daunting and you can never phone in sick if you are feeling under the weather. It would take something really sinister to keep a wedding planner away from “the big day” and swine flu could be just the tonic that does that.

You could not possibly coordinate a wedding displaying the symptoms of swine flu and mixing with guests. It could be fatal. With the doctors’ orders of complete isolation, it would leave you with the dreaded thought of notifying the bride and groom of the bad news. Yet belonging to the UKAWP I have that reassurance that I can ring my fellow colleagues and know that someone professional and experienced will be able to step in. Even more reassuring, is knowing that I have built up a huge friendship and rapport with another local wedding planner. We regularly let off steam to one another and likewise have recently been able to offer help and support for weddings that have been particularly demanding.

It is hard to train someone to work with the same ethos and attention to detail as yourself, but the UKAWP has been able to provide me with the opportunity to meet someone just like me, who embraces networking and does not see me as competition on her doorstep. I look forward to our coffee mornings catching up and talking weddings, its great fun, refreshing and reassuring to know that I have someone on my doorstep ready to lend a hand if the need ever arises.

9 Steps to Success

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Today we hear from one of our regular guest bloggers, Action Coach Business Coach, Ray Hutchin. Ray wants to share with us a simple 9 step process to achieving success - sounds good!

To achieve success in life I believe a simple 9 step process will help us all and here it is:-

Dream It
Goal It
Plan It
Task It
Action It
Measure It
Review It
Achieve It
Celebrate It

The first seven steps are all vital in achieving what we want to achieve, I don’t believe any one of them can be missed out (in fact we all go through this process subconsciously, but I believe we achieve far quicker and better results if we do it consciously).

So let us look at each one very quickly (as we could write a whole book on each one):-

Dream It – this is our roadmap, if we want to get anywhere we need to know where we are going and the same is true in life and business. The only thing that can hold us back is our imagination and fear.

Goal It- we need to turn our dream into a smart goal or goals, which gives us some focus and a timeframe.

Plan It – we need to break the dream down into smaller steps (sometimes called milestones) otherwise a goal can seem so daunting that we never get started on it. In fact most business owners actually spend more time planning their annual holiday than they do on planning where they want their business to go.

Task It - This is a very important part of the process and a part that most people never do, this is where the plan is broken down into tasks, when this is done all you have to do is then carry out the tasks to achieve your goal. Easier said than done though in most cases.

Action It- this is where a default diary comes into its own, allocate time to do the tasks and ensure they get done and you are a step closer to success.

Action It – This is about sticking to the plan and carrying out the tasks as scheduled and not letting anything distract you – because if no actions are taken then nothing will happen.

Measure It – You must measure the results you get from the tasks, I have seen far too many business owners make assumptions about the results they have got, only to find out when they have been measured that they have been way out.

Review It – One of the hardest steps to do, taking time out to reflect and think about the progress and what has worked and what hasn’t, so that changes can be made and if necessary go back to a high step in the process and make adjustments to the plan.

Achieve It – if all the above is followed and you persevere and the goals were SMART you should achieve your Dream over time

Celebrate It – once achieved celebrate – enjoy the feeling of achievement, so amongst other things, it helps to motivate you to achieve your next dream.

UKAWP at the National Wedding Show

Monday, July 27th, 2009

We are delighted to announce that UKAWP are exhibiting at the National Wedding Show taking place from 2-4 October this year at Earls Court in London. It’s the first time the alliance has exhibited at a show of this scale and size and we’re thrilled to be showing what a difference our planners can make to such a large bridal audience.

So if you’re a bride, do come and say hello and pick our brains on any of your wedding dilemmas and if you’re a planner, come and have a chat to find out what we offer that will benefit your company?

Step by Step Training

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Last weekend marked the exciting launch of our new training programme for new planners - Step by Step. Designed to pick up where the Business Practicalities course finishes, we were very pleased to be teaching it after months of work agreeing, writing and tweaking the content!

It seemed like a resounding success and the group of 10 pioneer future planners made teaching the course an absolute pleasure. As we worked our way round the intricacies of selecting, vetting and building relationships with good suppliers from outside caterers to film companies, the students were full of questions and excited by the level of detailed information given, the kind of stuff that only those who do the job know! The course covered the elements of planning from the moment the planner is hired until the end of the big day itself.

As with our Business Practicalities course, the range of students was diverse and dynamic with students from across the entire UK aiming for different sectors of the market in their new and existing businesses but all seeking excellence and professionalism which is music to our ears!

The next Step by Step course takes place in Northampton in October.

And whilst we’re talking training, our ever-popular Business Practicalities course for Northampton in September (as well as London in October) are sold out.

Book review: How to talk to anyone

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

I have just finished reading this great book (How to talk to anyone) and thought I would share my thoughts about it with you.

Although a friend of mine who spied it in my handbag laughed out loud at the title as she knows I can talk for England, I found it full of fabulous, simple hints and tips.

In a sense, my friend hit the nail on the head ….. we can all talk nineteen to the dozen with our closest friends, knowing that it doesn’t matter too much what we say, because we are totally comfortable and can rant, complain and generally gossip in safety.

However, if I walked into a client meeting or a networking event and wittered the way I do on a Friday evening with my girlfriends, I would not only fail to get the job/ good contacts, but make myself and everyone else feel very uncomfortable.

Author Leil Lowndes gives lots of insightful, simple ideas and suggestions for ensuring you can walk into any situation and feel at ease doing the things we all have to do sometimes, like making small talk, getting an introduction to the person you really want to speak to and desperately trying to keep a potentially dire conversation going, because there is nowhere to hide. Importantly she also talks about how to make the sale.

She introduces you to fun techniques, described as things like ‘Always Wear a Whatzit’ and ‘Accidental Adulation’ which are hard not to try out on everyone you meet once you have read the book.

Planners Networking Evening - North of England

Monday, July 20th, 2009

We’d like to remind you about our first networking event to be held in the North of England on Tuesday 22 September 2009. Organised by our Northern Representative, Andrea Swift of Fabulous Day, we hope the event will be a good opportunity to chat and share ideas. Formal speeches will be kept to an absolute minimum to ensure there will be plenty of time to network, make new friends and catch up with old ones. The event is open to trading wedding planners (UKAWP members or not) and students of UKAWP training courses but not other wedding suppliers. We’re delighted to be hosted by the beautiful Nunsmere Hall Hotel, Cheshire. The event will take place between 6pm and 9pm.

You can reserve your place by registering and paying online here. Tickets are priced at £10 for members of UKAWP and £15 for non members. We hope to see you there!

Nunsmere Hall Hotel

Why we planners have to work work work

Friday, July 17th, 2009

I met up with two other business owners last week for some informal networking/glasses of wine and chatter! We’ve all run our businesses for some years and regularly compare notes. We all of course have our moans and niggles about our businesses. Two of us were saying to the third that we were envious that she had clients on a retainer so she could predict her cash flow to a certain extent. I was just saying how fabulous it would be to have a repeat customer and to this of course they laughed but on a serious note they realised that it’s a tough and never-ending marketing cycle that we planners go through to gain and sell to new clients all the time.

But we can’t complain, according to one of our WPE speakers last spring (business coach from Action Coach) research has shown that any successful business has to market on many fronts and not put all their eggs in one basket, very true in the case of us planners who cannot rely on a customer coming back of course. It was quoted that a minimum of 7 different forms of marketing need to be applied consistently in order to achieve success. Of course they have identified almost 100 different forms of marketing in existence and we all have our own preferences and things we’d prefer to avoid and don’t suit our style. But get trying a new technique or two this year and the results could be excellent; how about trying a mailing campaign, a local exhibition, a newsletter to past clients or a competition? After all we all need to be in good shape for what looks like a promising year for 2010.

London training sold out

Monday, July 13th, 2009

The UKAWP Business Practicalities course offered in London (10/11 October) is now sold out. The next available course with places takes place on 19/20 September in Northamptonshire. For more information please go to our website where a full brochure can be downloaded.

Member Focus: Lancashire Wedding Planners

Monday, July 13th, 2009

In our regular fortnightly series we welcome Mark & Kelly from Lancashire Wedding Planners who are associate members of the UKAWP.

Lancashire Wedding Planners

Why did you become a wedding planner?

We really enjoy the challenge of planning events and seeing the end result of everybody’s hard work. Having organized events over the years for industry, helping a few friends with their weddings and planning our own wedding, we saw that we had an opportunity to effectively utilize our skills in a professional capacity.

What’s your USP?

Two for the price of one! Our clients are able to liaise with both of us while planning their wedding and we can also assist grooms who want to get involved but aren’t sure what to do. It also gives us an extra level of contingency if one of the planners is unavailable.

Do you have a favourite venue?

We tend not to have a favourite venue but have a choice of excellent “exclusive” venues and hotels.

How would your clients describe you?

Extremely well organized, amiable and “thought of absolutely everything”.

How do you unwind?

Socializing with friends is a favourite, walking our dog and exercising.

Is the job as glamorous as you thought?

The persona of being a wedding planner is glamorous but what people do not realize is that behind the scenes it is a lot of hard work and long hours but is highly rewarding when it all comes together.

What trends are you seeing for 2009?

We are seeing vintage being prominent this year with key colours purple and grey. Use of strong accent colours such as shades of pink and yellow are being used to enhance the grey.

Please do take the chance to visit Lancashire Wedding Planners website

The value of your data

Friday, July 10th, 2009

I’ve been upgrading some IT equipment this week and it prompted me to write a post on, let’s face it, not the most exciting topic but a really essential one. I don’t know about you, but when my broadband is down, it feels like I’m totally useless and my business comes to a crashing halt.

Think then about what happens if your hard drive dies and you loose all your data. With every month and year in business we gain valuable contacts and data and spend time creating all sorts of proposals, documents, files and fact sheets; imagine if it’s gone in a flash. The prospect is truly terrifying and many business fail to recover if they have a major data loss or at least suffer some really bad results.

So what options are there for small planning businesses who don’t have the support of an IT department to sort this for them? Whilst I claim to be no expert here are two options to consider if you haven’t already:

Online back up – companies such as http://www.datalifeline.net/ provide online off-site back up in their offices such that if your computer fails they can retrieve data for you remotely; you can set it to back up overnight and it happens automatically via the internet. This is of course also good if your computer is stolen, subject to flood, fire or other damage. With this company you choose which of your files you wish to back up and are basically charged on the volume of space that you purchase. Exact prices vary but can be around the £150-£300 mark per year.

External Desktop Hard Drive – available from all good IT stores and allows you to save your data onto a separate unit on a regular basis. You have to manually back up the data yourself but it literally takes 5 minutes in my case and I aim to do it once per week. The downside of course is that the external hard drive itself could be stolen, subject to fire or damage in the same way as the main computer so it’s worth storing it in a different location if you can to minimise the risk. External Hard Drives seem to cost less than £100 and it’s a one-off cost.

Naturally there is no right solution for everyone but these are just two we thought worth sharing.