One of our long term members, Isabel Smith has frequently written informative posts for our blog on life as a wedding planner. Last year she wrote an excellent one on valuing your worth as a wedding planner. In this new series for the UKAWP she is discussing her top 5 mistakes and how you can learn from them.

If you’ve caught the series, you will know I am on a mission to out myself by showcasing my biggest business errors so that you don’t ever have to.

We are here, at the number 1 top spot.  It’s a mistake so often made, and so often referenced by the wonderful Alliance team, but it just can’t be said enough!

TOP MISTAKE NO 1: Not trusting my instincts

People who run successful businesses all have, to some degree, strong instincts.  You have to – there are certain things that just can’t be taught (plenty that can though so we should all be reading and learning as much as we can!).

Well, with almost no exception, every time I have ignored my instincts, I have come to regret it.  There are too many examples to give to be honest so I’ll just pick one:

We have all doubtless taken on weddings we wish we hadn’t.  One springs to mind.  I left the consultation really feeling like I understood the brief but there was this little niggle.  They just weren’t my sort of people.  I don’t mean that in the ‘Stoke Park got caught being snobby about the ‘quality’ of their clients’ way.  I just mean there was a mis-match between my target market, what they said they wanted and who they were.  Funnily enough, it turned into a total nightmare.  Nothing I presented them with was right or good enough, nothing I said seemed to make any sense to them and certainly none of the reasons they gave me for dismissing my suggestions made any sense to me.  It was just a communication nightmare and the whole process was utterly un-enjoyable for everyone.  I definitely should have listened to that niggle and never should have taken the wedding on!

Have a little faith folks!  You can’t possibly get everything right (so give yourself a break), but if it really feels wrong, it probably is.