Candice (00:00.182)

If you're like most wedding pros I talked to, you have a bigger sales problem than you realize. Today, I want to dive into two stages of the sales process that I think are costing most wedding pros money. You're here to grow a business, but not just any kind of business. You want to grow a profitable business with purpose, a business where you wake up every single day driven to serve your customers and make a difference in your own life.

I'm Candace Coppola, published author, business coach, and your guide to building a profitable business with purpose. Join me here every single week as we explore how to build and grow your business with purpose. Get ready to dig in and have meaningful conversations about the strategies and techniques that will help you build your dream business. This is the power in purpose.

Candice (01:00.408)

Hey there, friends. Welcome back to the Power and Purpose Podcast. It's me, your host, Candace. And in this episode, we're talking all about sales and the two stages of the sales process that I guarantee are costing you money right now. We're going to walk through the sales cycle a little bit. I'm going to teach you how to elevate these two stages and make your sales process stronger.

make it better so that you can land more sales in this sale season. And while sales isn't always the most fun thing we do in our business, at least until we get good at it, once we get good at sales, we love it. It is something that we all need to get good at in order to run a profitable business because you can't be profitable unless you make money, unless you get sales. So today I'm sharing two of the most important stages of the sales cycle that I believe every single wedding pro needs to master.

And these two stages, they're the presentation and handling objectives. Now there are seven stages of the sales process, but I want to focus on these two stages because they really are where you turn your leads into booked clients, especially when things are a bit slower and especially when clients are doing a lot of due diligence, which is what they're doing right now. They're interviewing lots of people.

They're using lots of different levers to make decisions. So these two stages are really critical at this inflection point in the industry. I'm going to break down how to make your presentations irresistible and also how you can handle objections better with confidence so that you can close more deals and grow your wedding industry business. Now, before we dive in to these two stages and I talk to you a little bit more about the sales cycle, this episode is sponsored by me.

And that means that the doors to the Planner's Playbook are open. If you're a wedding planner who wants to grow your business, and if you want me to go deeper into all seven stages of the sales cycle, I'm going to invite you to join me inside the Planner's Playbook because we have a course on this that gets you instant access when you join. You'll also get my upgraded and extended sales scripts just for wedding planners, Canva templates to make your presentation pop.

Candice (03:19.852)

workbooks to help you boost your confidence in sales. We also have courses on Pinterest, blogging. You'll get access to My Ideal Client cocktail. There are tons of master classes, including a recent one that we did with podcast guest Elizabeth Stuckey from episode 149, all about booking luxury clients in your wedding planning business. There's so much support inside the Planner's Playbook to help you outside of sales.

I just wanted to highlight all the different great sales tools and education we have built into the program since that's what we're talking about in today's episode. So here's the deal. If you want my help to grow your wedding planning business, this is the way to do it. Go to plannersplaybook.com to learn more. I'll tell you everything that's included, all the amazing bonuses that we're giving away to members who join us before the doors close on November 4th at midnight.

And you'll also see the price and the different tiers of membership levels and choose the right one for you. Plannersplaybook.com. Make sure to go check out all the details. There's a short window to join us, but a long enough window for you to make a great decision. And if you have any questions about the program, what's included, if it's right for your business, reach out to us. Reach out to me, my team. You can reach out to me via DM as well. Happy to answer your questions. I want to make sure that you feel so good.

about joining this program and getting my help. All right, let's dive in to our episode today, which is the two stages of the sales cycle that are costing you money. The first is the presentation stage of the sales cycle. And when I say presentation, I mean all the things that you do throughout the sales cycle to present your offer. This could be a verbal presentation on a consult.

It can then extend to anything you might send post-consult with a customized proposal or contract. This could be anything where you present your offer to the client, to the potential couple who is desiring to work with you. The presentation is extremely important.

Candice (05:40.44)

There are a lot of boxes we actually have to take off in the presentation to get someone excited about what it is that we're offering and also to elevate our businesses from the competition. Interestingly enough, I have been thinking about this a lot lately and I've been thinking about how the sales cycle has changed. It has changed a lot over the last few years post-COVID. And I've also been thinking about

how difficult it must be for couples who are engaged, searching for a photographer, a planner, whatever, and they're meeting with all these people, getting all these quotations, getting all these proposals, and how everybody's stuff looks so similar, or how everything is blending together. It's really confusing. Chat GPT wrote it all. It all sounds the same, and they're just, they don't feel connected to it, and it's very difficult for them to make.

a What I propose is that your presentation, how you present your services, your products, and your offer is one of the biggest keys to getting people to buy it. And it needs to be irresistible. It needs to be a no brainer. What do I mean when I say irresistible? Irresistible first begins by having a presentation that is focused

on the listener, focused on the reader. So your presentation feels like it was created for the person it's being delivered to. You have to speak about what they want and how you're going to show up and deliver what it is that they want. They don't care about you. They care about themselves. And they need to know what's in it for me.

Your presentation should also be treated like a product and like an experience. Your couples are paying thousands of dollars. And at this stage, they often don't have a tangible object or service. They're buying your photography, but you don't deliver the images until six weeks after their wedding. They're buying your design, but they don't get your design until the wedding day. Your presentation is the first

Candice (08:03.544)

thing they essentially purchase. And I want you to start treating this like a product and like an experience. So what you put on this or how you speak out your presentation matters. It matters a lot. It needs to establish trust. It needs to position you as the expert and position your expertise as something they need to have that is irresistible.

It needs to look good. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It needs to look like the price you're selling. Next, it has to sell the transformation and not a checklist. When you sell a checklist, you're going to look just like all the other checklist sellers. So if you're a planner, you need to sell the feeling and you need to sell the wedding day and what that looks and feels like.

If you're a photographer, you need to sell the photos and you need to sell what it means to have your images. Remember Seth Godin's quote, people don't buy paint, they buy painted walls. People don't go to the Home Depot and buy a can of paint. They buy the image on Pinterest they saw that inspired them to want to tear down their living room and start from scratch.

They don't buy the paint and all the tools. They buy the end result, the product. What are you selling and is your presentation selling the transformation? Now you probably do need to have some form of a checklist. Like, you do need some bullet points of the services you offer, very straightforward, clear and easy to understand, but we don't want the emphasis to be on the checklist. want the emphasis to

be on the transformation. Your presentation also needs to be clear and easy to understand. Honestly, I'm very much a fan of Simple. I think Simple wins the game every single time. So when I say we need to elevate our presentations, we need to make them feel like the $9,000 photography package you're selling, I'm not saying that it needs to be a kitchen sink filled with stuff. Simple.

Candice (10:27.63)

clear, concise, easy to read, easy to understand. The lack of overly processed looking stuff is an asset. But this also means that you need to ditch the flowery language that nobody understands. we need to speak as if you were speaking in conversation. Things need to be very clear, easy to understand, easy to read.

And this is why it's so nice to have an outside perspective or to have a copywriter or somebody help you, especially in the presentation stage, you're sending over a something they can read that is written. It's really important to have, make sure this is clear, concise, that it's not using inside jargon that they don't understand, but also has an element of personality where they feel like they're talking to you. So it feels like a conversation.

Finally, the presentation is gonna focus on the next steps. There's always a call to action. But beyond a call to action, it is giving them a look, more than a look. You're not peeking through a window, you're opening the door, you're welcoming them into your business and showing them what life is like now that they're going to hire you. We call this the presumptive close. And when you do this in the sales process, it makes a big difference.

your presentation needs to presume that they're going to move forward with you. And in that presumption, you tell them what's going to happen next. Not that you're going to send a contract, that you're going to do all this stuff. That's not what happens next. What happens next is, is if you're a planner, I'm going to start taking care of the two things that are plaguing you, that are upsetting you, that are keeping you up at night. And we're going to start the thing that you're most excited about.

If you're photographer, looks like, as soon as, you know, this is my presentation. Now that you have this, our next steps is to get your engagement session scheduled and to start thinking about the styling of that session, location, what you want, what you want it to feel like, the vibe. I'll send you over some ideas. We're already moving into the working with you stage. Those are the next steps that a irresistible presentation focuses on. Now there's no

Candice (12:44.686)

right way to present. I think there are a lot of dynamic ways that you can send a presentation or that you can host a consultation as your presentation, but you do need to send something tangible for people to read. They're getting that from your competition. So it is the status quo of what they expect.

You can have a great, amazing Canva template that you work from to customize. You can use something like HoneyBook, which you know I'm obsessed with. You can use a different type of CRM that suits your business. You can have a landing page. I mean, there are so many different ways that you can present. I think it really depends on your workflow, what makes sense for you, what's easy for you to customize and make feel custom, what gives off the vibe, the energy that you want to give that is as luxurious as the services that you're providing.

And there's a lot of different directions you can go in. None are necessarily right. None are necessarily wrong. I would say that the key here is, that your presentation needs to be easy to read, easy to consume. So if I were, for instance, sending a presentation via a PDF to a client, to potential client, I might think about how they're going to view that PDF. They're probably going to view it on their phone. Is it easy for them to access and download?

What about the format? It probably should be vertical because their phone is vertical. It's going to be easier for them to read. So I think about the modality based on how they're going to consume the presentation and I make sure it fits the consumption. Outside of the presentation, we have handling objections and that's the next stage of the sales cycle that you need to get so much better at. The presentation happens in that consultation phase where then you present to the client your offer.

But objections happen at any stage in the sales cycle. But handling objections, we tend to handle those objections in large number in the sales cycle towards the end before they make a decision. And in fact, nobody will hire you unless you have handled all their objections. Let me repeat that. Nobody will hire you unless you have handled all their objections.

Candice (15:00.716)

What are objections? Objections are things like, I'm not ready. I don't know if I need this. I don't know if you're the right fit for me. You haven't worked at our venue before. I don't know if you've worked with our vendors before. Our wedding's far out. I'm not sure if we're ready to make a decision. Those are all some very common normal objections that couples have during the sales process.

And as a business owner, you should be at every stage of the sales cycle trying to mitigate and answer objections to ease their worries and make them feel confident in what they're purchasing. Do not tell me that your ideal clients don't have objections because they do. They do. We all have little reasons in our head about why

now might not be the right time to buy, why this person might not be the right fit. Do we really need this? Do we really want this? I'm nervous about making this investment. We all have these objections about things. And it's up to you, the business owner, to support your leads by answering questions that come up during the consultation, that come up during the sales cycle, and handle those objections. Your ideal clients do have objections.

Saying they don't, it's not true. And to be honest, it's kind of lazy. And it's not always about money either. It's not like people are just walking around and all they're thinking about is money. That's not necessarily true. A lot of objections just tend to hide behind questions. So you need to pay attention to the different questions that pop up throughout the sales cycle, the entire sales cycle, and make sure you're handling those objections at every stage.

Now inside the Planner's Playbook, I actually did a mock sales call. The replay is available to new members, so just a little extra bonus. You'll be able to watch this. But during this mock sales call, planners could ask me random objections, and I would answer them on the spot. And I would answer them as if they were asking me these questions in a sales call. Like they were the client and I was the planner. And there are four major categories of objections.

Candice (17:21.975)

that I talk about a lot in the planner's playbook, but they come up a lot in the sales cycle for most wedding pros. And these four common objections are lack of budget, lack of trust, lack of need, and lack of urgency. Lack of budget looks like, can't afford this. It's too expensive. We don't have the budget left for this. That's lack of budget. Lack of trust looks like, I'm not sure if you're the right fit for us. Have you worked at

My venue before. Do you know my vendors? Do you travel to my city, state, or country? I used to get this sometimes in a consultation where a client would be like, do you travel to Hartford? I'm like, are you joking? Connecticut is like the size of a postage stamp. Of course I travel to Hartford. It's 25 minutes away. Can I see some references? How many weddings do you do a year? All stem from lack of trust, lack of need.

I'll just do this myself. I don't know if we really need this. I know someone who can do it for us. We're already working with another vendor who can do this. That's popping up as people try to be like Jack of all trades. Also, lack of urgency. We're still interviewing other vendors. I'm scared to make the wrong decision. I need to talk to my fiance, my parents, before I make a decision. All stem from lack of urgency.

Now, you probably didn't start your wedding business because you love sales, but this is something that you absolutely need to prioritize. And in fact, I would challenge you over this sales cycle and this sales season to make it your number one priority to learn as much as you can about sales and about handling objections. You've heard me say before that without sales, you don't have a business. Without marketing, you don't have a business either. Marketing and sales are literally the cornerstone.

of your business. And sometimes as a business owner, you need to get good at the things that are less exciting and less fun. So you have some of these common objections. What I would love to talk about really quickly are five tips for how you can overcome these objections in the sales process and get better at them. First, do not wait for these objections to appear. Instigate.

Candice (19:44.652)

Make sure that you have great FAQs on your website. Make sure that in the consultation process, you were asking questions that help field some of these objections so that you can hear directly from the client what they might be objecting about. Acknowledge and respect their concerns. This is a big purchase for them, and this is like the first time that they've ever bought something like this. Acknowledge and respect their concerns.

Make sure that you educate and offer a rebuttal to concerns they have, educating them on the process, letting them know how things work so they feel more comfortable and confident. Where you can, you can provide examples, you can provide references. If you've been in a situation or a scenario they're worried about, tell them about what you did in that scenario. Tell them about how you managed it and always provide references. Finally, follow up. The follow up is where most

sales are lost, and wedding pros do not follow up enough. In fact, that's his own podcast episode, which we will cover during the sales cycle, so stay tuned. These are some ways that you can overcome objections. Don't wait, instigate, acknowledge, and respect their concerns. Educate, offer a rebuttal, provide examples and references, and follow up. Above all, get better.

at eliciting and handling objections so that your customers can make really educated, good decisions about hiring you. Okay, that was a lot. I hope this has helped you and given you a few ideas to try and to implement immediately in your business for the sales season coming up where you can elevate your presentation stage and also handle objections better. I think there's sometimes this idea

that you can magically get good at sales. Some people are just naturally great at sales. They're just a natural born salesperson. But the truth is, is that most of us need to learn how to get good at sales, myself included. If you are ready to dive deeper and to use some of these sales strategies and access a lot of the tools and the templates that will help you streamline your sales process, I want to invite you to join me inside the Planner's Playbook. Inside, you're going to find my step-by-step guide.

Candice (22:05.664)

on the seven stages of the sales cycle. You'll get customizable templates, a supportive community, need to answer your biggest sales questions so that you can nail every stage of the sales cycle. And I'd love to welcome you inside. To learn more, go to plannersplaybook.com. Make sure that you join before the doors close. All right, friends, I would love to hear back from you on this episode. What are you going to dig into first? Are you going to work on your presentation?

or are you going to work on handling objections? DM me, post on this episode's post on Instagram. I want to hear feedback from you. And what would you like me to teach you more about here on the podcast? I'd love to hear that too. All right, friends, I want to remind you there is so much power in your purpose. I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Power and Purpose Podcast.

If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and consider leaving a review. Head over to powerinpurposepodcast.com to access all of the resources and links mentioned in today's episode. That's powerinpurposepodcast.com. I'll see you next time.