When I was in the hospital undergoing an emergency labor and delivery of our baby girl (1 month earlier than expect, for that matter), I remember checking my phone once things settled down and I was in recovery – and saw to my surprise…

✨ that I received a deposit for a wedding collection of $4100, all due to my automation process I put in place with my CRM, and about 1 hour of one on one admin and phone call work prior to being in the hospital. ✨

Fellow small business owners in the wedding industry are like me: a solopreneur doing the preproduction and planning, creating, admin, editing and post production.. basically wearing 17+ hats all while tackling LIFE outside of your creative small business.

I believe theres a way to balance a business you love all while prioritizing WHO you love in life.

So when I learned that my system of automating and simplifying my business inquiries process was effective: I felt it was essential to spread the word.

👀 Watch the video below for the demos of my automation process from inquiry to consultation call

1. Consider having your starting prices or average investment as well as an overview of packages on your website somewhere.

I personally have a whole page of this on my website but some people may just have one line that says “all-inclusive wedding collections starting at $8,000” which works too. This qualifies your leads with ballpark pricing so that they have a general idea if whether inquiring is going to be the best use of your time and theirs. You contact page can reassure the hyper personalized, boutique-like, experience and this helps to justify the price and sets the tone.

2. Harness the power of video to warm up your website visitors

Whether it be a video on the process from pre-production through post-production, or a welcome video, the main goal is to show yourself speaking directly to your visitors and potential clients all in the effort to QUICKLY build TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY.
Seeing your face and hearing your voice BEFORE emailing back and forth starts works wonders.

3. Have a powerful autoreply email that sends in under 1 minute

Statistics show that 78% of customers buy from the 1st responder. Isn’t that wild?
And – Conversions are 391% higher in the first minute of communicating.
But also, you want to warm them up with a super personal feeling email back right? Well, I’ve found that by already aiming to warm up potential clients through their experience watching my website’s About Video and Process Video, the autoreply email can jump right into the information they’re looking for.

Most importantly, I always like to include a link for them to view my calendar and book a call at a time that conveniently works for them. I find that by reducing any hurdles that could slow the process of them being able to talk to me and get the information they need, really increases my booking rate.

4. Focus the consultation call on learning about each other and seeing if you’d make a good fit on a person to person level – not based on prices.

Keep it light and emotion driven on consult call, not salesy. Alot of people feel they need to sell their services and talk about themselves, but thats the quickest way to acheive the opposite. Instead, ask about them, their backstory, what drew them to your work, and maybe if they can describe what they hope to feel from their product from you?
At the end, you can ask what package they have in mind and if there’s any other questions. Then, send a summary email and thank them PLUS a proposal available to take action on