Knowing the difference between these terms sets us up with the right level of expectations to have when dealing with them, as well as the right way of thinking about advancing our relationships with them across these different stages.

Customers have bought from you before and provide repeated business. That's the end goal of the sales process when we take a "prospect" whom we're currently chatting with to see if we can do business with them in the future!

No the customer isn't always right! But they do have a right to be listened to and validated at all times by us 🙂 the professionals with the expertise they trusted us with in the first place!

It's not a good idea to initiate cold text interactions focused on only what you need, where you're only what you can gain and at the end of the day, you have no follow through on agreed courses of action! This episode is a rant so listeners beware 🤣🤣🤣

FOREX might not be for you if your idea of an investment opportunity is something passive with steady returns over the long term. Think of FOREX more as "active trading" rather than an investment opportunity. Also tread with caution if you lack the drive for frequent technical analysis of market positions, the use of leverage, and if you lack the emotional resilience to hold your position while the market climbs and dives.

Genuine multilevel marketing companies bring with them training in sales, distribution, business and personal development. What about other businesses of the sort that seem mostly concerned with growing pyramid consumption chains? This episode explores my personal opinions on the matter, and it's hopefully more nuanced than a "yes" or "no" answer.

Popular ideas about networking assume building personal relationships with the hope of doing business in the future. I argue that networking ought to be business, value, or "other" centric relationships focused on advancing other people's interests. Possible payoffs don't have to be immediate! We can settle for a status as a keen connector, and useful resource person. This expanded personal influence might yield some results for the future 🙂

When clients say no or "ghost" us, it's not personal. It's more likely that we weren't dealing with a properly qualified client in the first place! Run through your qualifications check list to confirm that there wasn't a mismatch in our understanding of their needs, their budget, and any sense of urgency with their timelines. Rejection doesn't always have to lead to heartache 🙂

Stop worry about other entrants in your space undercutting the market with lowball pricing. Focus on things within your control like your sales and marketing processes with an emphasis on how to distinguish yourself and your services.

The typical qualities we're exposed to in the wedding industry are also essential to growing sales; communications, professionalism, networking, etc... The most important skill or attribute is to always have good outcome in mind. This will be the fuel needed especially in the early days when we're seeking the momentum to get things off the ground.

The reason why we're in business is to create customers. We do this through the marketing function of our businesses. Since customers are worth more over the long haul, we also have to look for creative ways to keep in touch!

When photographers think of expanding their business, they focus on gear and lenses, retouching theory, and they try to promote ideas around price uniformity. Time would be better spent focusing on improving the marketing and sales related aspects of the business to better promote and distinguish themselves. This is a cautionary tale to other professionals/ vendors in the wedding space!

Personal selling techniques are the best way to prime relationships and cultivate lifetime customer value beyond this present wedding. This episode is an intro to this philosophy.

Is it true that sales people are sleazy and will sell anything to anyone? Whether the Eskimo will buy the fridge from you depends on how well you understand what problem he or she is trying to solve in buying your fridge. Some sales people are sleazy. True sales professionals are problem solvers.

Personal selling is important because there's other avenues to grow your business beyond branding, marketing, and online content. The primary purpose of a wedding planner is marketing and not wedding planning! Because without creating a customer, we'll have no customers to serve.

Wedding professionals often come from a diverse academic or professional background. This previous experiences are assets that should be used in running our businesses and customer conversations.

A lot of Wedding vendors assume their business struggles can be chalked down to personality, the economy, luck and timing, and even concerns about whether a viable business can be built in the wedding space. This podcast makes the argument that business struggles are a failure of the marketing function of the business. This includes publicity and promotions both online and in person, and in person sales. This is also the overall thrust of the podcast.

Assertiveness, being passive, or being aggressive aren't necessarily personality traits in sales. They're more about how much attention we pay to sizing up our wants versus the customer's needs during the negotiations in the lead up to the wedding. This is the second part in the series that aims to keep wedding professionals focused on assessing the business needs rather than being weighed down by questions of our personalities.

Popular ideas about being a pushy sales person assumes that you're rude or overbearing. Being pushy in sales isn't a personality flaw, but occurs when you keep trying to sell to people who neither want nor need your service, or if they can't afford it with any sense of urgency.

The passion economy and ideas about how passion should relate to business abound everywhere today, and especially in the wedding industry. The belief is that if you're passionate about weddings then you ought to take the leap. This podcast looks at different perspectives on passion, market validation, and what you need to carry you through the cycles of being in business.

The average business owner doesn't fuss about personal selling because it doesn't scale. While personal selling won't help you grow your business to a ten fold magnitude, it will come in handy with first-hand and deep customer insights that will inform and improve the results of your sales team in the future.

The transparency economy raises practical questions about how we intend to be perceived in the market. We can either fake it till we make it, or keep it real and be more relatable to engender trust. Of course these are also tied to other questions of brand positioning and figuring out our value proposition. Either way, personal selling is a tool that can be used to sway the course either way. This riff is a freestyle on some ideas expressed by Joe Lemon on his Sales Culture Podcast.

The right personal selling approach can transform single transactions into multiple sources of income down the future. This episode is an intro to this idea that'll be explored in future episodes.

Trust is essential in commerce because it helps our prospective customers move through the initial concerns about being hustled, and move to openly considering what proposals we have to meet their needs. This episode is a sketch about how you can build trust by being appropriate with our prospective clients, showing credibility and competence, as well as building rapport and commonality between strangers.

If you don't trust yourself, no one will and you won't be able to take yourself credibly through the leadership or sales process. This is the final riff on the Harvard Business Review article "Begin with Trust" May/ June 2020.

Without authenticity in the sales process, demonstrating judgement and competence, and showing empathy, it's doubtful that you can effectively sell your product or service. This is the second part in the retelling of the HBR article May/ June 2020 "Begin with Trust".

Trust is an essential ingredient in personal selling. This episode explores why we need to begin with trust and explore new perspectives that put our customers at the focus of our interactions. This is based on a review of an HBR article of the same name published in May/ June 2020.

Having multiple income streams is a handy idea not just for wedding industry professionals, but business owners and hustlers at large. Some of the ideas explored in this podcast include the Cashflow quadrant which is a nifty way for charting and guiding one's journey through acquiring different income streams.

Branding is important to the personal selling process because it makes you more familiar to your prospective customers. This episode explores other factors important in building your brand and the relationship between branding and sales.

Even though personal selling is a key factor on which we can build our businesses as wedding industry professionals, we also still have recourse to emailing and all things related to sales funnels and eMail lists. This episode explores tips from the discipline of Personal Selling that can be carried over into the art of emailing.

Money management is an important part of the puzzle that comes with providing a viable wedding industry based service. This episode and the others will be a peek into discussions I've had with my mentee from the University of Aberdeen who is also looking into entering the wedding industry in the UK as a photographer.

Personal selling and in person sales is a labour intensive form of persuading our clients which may not be suitable for all kinds of vendors in the wedding space. This episode explores who it's for, and who it's not for...as well as other resources for expanding our knowledge of how to sell face to face.

Most vendors aren't sure the price tags for wedding shows make them a justifiable investment. My thesis is they can be so long as you come up with, and properly execute a plan for the expo.

Covid posses serious concerns about how we can conduct business on a daily basis, however we shouldn't let things grind to a halt during this period. This episode explores why we should keep on moving, and looks at common sense approaches of how to go about selling and promoting ourselves and our businesses.