WIPA First Non-Profit Trade Association Launched for US Wedding Industry

There are many wedding organizations offering networking meetings, conferences, education, networking, and/or certification throughout the United States: ACPWC, AFWPI, June Wedding, Inc., Weddings Beautiful, and ABC to name just a handful.

While all these organizations serve their members, to varying degrees, none of them are actually a non-profit trade association (also known as a Business League).

What’s the difference you ask? A non-profit trade association, such as ISES or NACE, and now, WIPA, is owned by its members. It is not operated by an individual or partnership who own the organization, in perpetuity.

The average member of any of organization, national or local, may not care whether the belong to a non-profit trade association; however, it is more than a technicality. It’s a way of doing business.

Further, there is dominant wedding association, nationally. There a variety of certifications, which have their own value, but there is not uniformity among them.

WIPA is the first national non-profit (501c6) trade association created specifically for providers of wedding products and services.

The purpose of WIPA is to educate the public about the value of employing qualified wedding specialists, to set and monitor performance standards for its members, and to provide members with opportunities to enhance their professional growth.

Pioneered by 36 leading authorities in the wedding business, WIPA was introduced to a select group of bridal specialists recently at The Vintage Estate in Napa Valley, California, on October 1st, and at the headquarters of Wildflower Linen in Southern California on October 7th.

WIPA’s Founding Sponsors and Members read like a Who’s Who list in the wedding industry – Auberge du Soleil, Denon & Doyle Entertainment, Good Gracious! Events, Paula LeDuc Fine Catering, Penton Media (publishers of Special Events magazine) The Carneros Inn, and many other premiere providers.

“We recognized the need for higher level education and professional development opportunities for those employed in the wedding industry,” explains WIPA’s first President, Joyce Scardina Becker, an international award-winning wedding planner and author.  “Our industry has just risen to professional status over the past 20 years, and many unskilled planners and suppliers have been starting new wedding careers at a rapid pace.  There’s an overdue need for a strong code of ethics, and WIPA will set the standards of performance for the wedding industry.  The expert members in WIPA are demanding it.”

As a non-profit association, WIPA is run by its members, who understand what it takes to produce a wedding. WIPA brings together professionals from all wedding disciplines, including cake designers, caterers, entertainment companies, florists, hoteliers, journalists, photographers, rental companies, videographers, wedding planners and many more.

This solid peer network helps WIPA’s professionals produce outstanding results for brides and grooms.  Other national membership service organizations exist in the wedding industry, but they are for-profit entities, in business to generate a monetary return on investment for their owners.  WIPA has been established to satisfy needs that are unmet by the for-profit wedding groups, primarily through superior education, mentoring, certification, career advancement and business support.

WIPA is moving to the forefront of wedding industry education at The Special Event 2009 Conference, which will take place at the San Diego Convention Center on January 27-30, 2009.  At this annual conference that attracts 6,000 event industry professionals from around the world, WIPA members will present six educational seminars on important wedding-related topics.  For more information about The Special Event 2009, visit its website.

The long term plan for WIPA includes local chapters and its own national conference.

Next week, as part of its rollout, WIPA will be hosting launch events on Monday, November 17th, and Tuesday, November 18th, in San Diego and Santa Monica, respectively. These launch events are designed to share information about the benefits of joining this new association.

Monday, November 17th
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina
1380 Harbor Island Drive
San Diego, CA 92101

To RSVP for the San Diego event, please email: jessica@eventsbydesign.com

Tuesday, November 18th
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Fairmont Mirarmar Hotel & Bungalows
101 Wilshire Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90401

To RSVP for the San Diego event, please email: paula@weddingsbyct.com

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SPECIAL COMMENT: This is ground breaking news. The launch and success of WIPA can be an excellent enhancement to the United States wedding industry. It’s important to find out about, attend launch events, join, and be involved. In this way, wedding professionals can earn both the knowledge and credentials to serve their clients and peers with utmost integrity and ability.

Your reaction, comments, thoughts, and questions are especially welcomed on this news.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

Set your wedding marketing goals for 2009

Perhaps you have noticed. Halloween has passed and Christmas decorations are everywhere in sight. Thanksgiving barely registers as a bump-in-the-road anymore.

If Christmas is a scant 50 days away, can the new year be far behind?

Okay, now that I’ve successfully boosted your blood pressure, it’s time to take inventory on marketing. Please pull out your 2008 wedding marketing plan. You have a written wedding marketing plan, don’t you?

In either case, set aside some quiet time for planning. My definition of quiet time means no distractions. No phones and no extraneous people. What you need is your marketing materials from 2008, your financial information, sales data, and media kits for all the new marketing opportunities in 2009. A Sunday away from the office, with just you,  your laptop, business partner, and/or marketing mentor should do it.

Gee whiz… I really didn’t mean to scare you so badly.

Tell you what. Do three things, right now.

1. Block a half-day or full day on your calendar for this planning session.
2. Begin to gather and organize your materials for that session, giving yourself enough time to prepare.
3. Obtain current media kits and rate information from any publications, websites, wedding shows, networking groups or other marketing options you should be considering.

I’ll get back to you on the rest.

Quote: Tomorow’s starting now – John Legend (quote inspired by Marcello Pedalino, MMP Entertainment)

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

Whatever is obviously outdated, needs fixing

The image of the sign in this post appears in the office of one of my doctors. It lives behind the glass, facing the hoards of patients, killing time in the waiting room.

In the last couple of years, I’ve spent way too much time in waiting rooms. I’ve read every magazine, worked on my laptop, and considered every possible piece of good or bad news that might face me when I actually get in to see the doctor.

The sign posts a change of insurance acceptance from May 15, 2007. HELLO! It’s now November 2008. Either remove the date or remove the sign.

The sign is a symbol of internal blindness that many small business owners suffer from. We don’t notice obvious evidence that the external faces of our businesses is covered with cobwebs.

• Does your website boast?: Last updated 10/7/06
• Do you have trouble opening documents sent to you, by email, because your software is more than two versions old?
• Does your company logo look like it was designed in the late 1970′s?
• When your crew shows up to deliver or set up, are they wearing Grateful Dead t-shirts, or polo shirts, sporting your company name?

Time flies, and we have a different threshold of awareness when it comes to ourselves, or our businesses. Designing and implementing a new logo is a big deal. Others tasks… not so much.

Get an outside opinion. A fresh set of eyes and ears. In a time when money is tight, you’ll be surprised how many actions you can take to bring matters up to date, without spending a king’s ransom.

Once you figure out what those tasks are, you actually have to perform them.

You can do it!

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

When a wedding referral source gets fired

Earlier this week, one my clients lost her job. She was a competent, hard worker, and pulled in the appropriate sales numbers for her company.

She handled events in a banquet facility for a dinner-house, video poker bar, live entertainment room, and separate banquet facility.

The other day, she received a text message from her boss indicating the business would be closing that morning (details are irrelevant). She called him to confirm the bad news.

Game over for her, but there is more.

Like many facilities, she subcontracted for various rentals and services. She had a ‘house-DJ’ who had become quite dependent on her flow of business. He had not found it necessary to do much marketing for holiday business, this year.

All of a sudden, his company is in big trouble.

CAUTION: If you are highly dependent for wedding referrals from one company or one person at a company, and they are fired, let go, or the business closes, you are up the creek without a paddle (that’s a technical term).

This little story is quite contained. However, if you are dealing with one person, in an office of six, and you haven’t developed relationships with the other five, you are officially tempting fate.

Do an inventory of referral sources, and both cement and widen the relationships. If the unpredictable happens, you will be better prepared.

Don’t just wait. Be proactive.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

5 Tips To Make Your Psyche, Recession Resistant

This morning, a headline in the business section shouted “Retail Sales Plunge.”

Wow! How much, 40%, 30%, 25%? No, it was 1.2%. This small percentage might represent many dollars for the mega-business. For the small business, one wouldn’t even notice it. A drop of 1.2% could easily be offset by adding just a few efficiencies. Effectively, a loss OR gain of 1.2% is flat.

This headline caused me to think about recession issues and the hype of headline-news. You may not realize that the authors of news articles don’t write the headlines; the editors do.

Here are a few quick thoughts to make your wedding marketing psyche “recession resistant.”

1) Don’t just read the headline; read the article. Often the item is neither as negative or as positive as the headline. Don’t swallow the headline as thought it’s the beginning and the end of things. And sort out what, if anything, applies to you.

2) The best defense is a good offense. This may be a sports cliche, but it rings true, right now. Now is not the time to go into hiding, based on fear of the recession. It’s the time to ramp up personal public relations and marketing to actively remind people of your presence.

3) Distance yourself from negativity and negative people: We all have friends and business associates who can find the cloud in every silver lining. Keep your distance. To the greatest extent you can, interact with positive, optimistic people.

That doesn’t mean an individual cannot experience a rough patch, but, like you, they should be working on strategies to improve their chances of success.

4) Lagniappe: Lagniappe refers to “a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase.” Rather than give discounts, offer ‘something extra,’ without being asked. Even if you did not need to make that part of the negotiation, throw something in, and softly communicate its value to the client.

5) Remember to breathe: Slow down, before you react. After a bad phone call or other tough news, take a walk, refresh yourself and start again. Don’t work seven days a week; recharge your body and brain. You’ll be more effective and efficient.

If you have any great ideas that you are using to stay on the positive side of things, please share them by posting a comment. That, in itself, is a feel-good.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

Dealing with your weakest link

One of life’s realities is that each of us is not good at everything. I’ve never been good at iron shirts. Worse than that, I’ve never had the desire to become good at it. Rather than wear wrinkled shirts, I outsource it. The local cleaners does a great job laundering and pressing my shirts, puts them on a hanger… no starch please.

That’s just one of the tasks I’m not good at. I’m constantly grappling with which ones I should delegate or outsource.

The same is true of company weaknesses. One can work around some weaknesses, work around others, but weaknesses that crop up repeatedly should raise the red flag for you.

Big businesses have weaknesses, too. Often they are systemic. Rather than teaching critical thinking and problem solving, they give employees a script or a policy, and hope for the best. Good luck with that!

As a small business business owner or middle manager, you have other choices: Delegate, coach, training, or redefine job duties along the lines of skills rather job description.

Personality flaws or idiosyncrasies cannot be changed. Some people should not have customer contact. To think you somehow modify their behavior is arrogant, at best. Poor or awkward customer service can undo the greatest wedding marketing in just a split-second.

There is an old line, “Never try to teach a pig to sing. They can’t do it, and trying to teach them annoys the pig.”

Nordstrom has a great motto in personnel: “We don’t train people to be nice. We hire nice people.”

Everyone either is, or will be, in a period of reevaluation. If you’re not, you will be soon.

Simply, you cannot afford to have weak links. Can you eliminate them, entirely? Maybe not for any great length of time. If you don’t minimize them, you leave your business vulnerable to all kinds of drama and failure.

You don’t wait either of those, do you?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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Are you really indispensable?

One of the best aspects of our 21st century society is ultra-fast, 24-7 communication, from any point on the planet, to any other point on the planet.

One of the worst aspects of our 21st century society is ultra fast, 24-7 communication, from any point on the planet, to any other point on the planet.

It gives you the illusion of urgency and importance. Yes, the illusion.

Were matters any less urgent 30 years ago? I think not.

First, came the ‘FedEx’ effect; then fax machines, and clunky cell phones.

Now you can text, blog, email, web-surf, and so much more, all from your cell phone. Is that good? Don’t answer that question…. just yet.

Ask yourself if you’re addicted to instant communication. How long can you go without using your cell phone or a laptop? 12 hours, 6 hours, 1 hour?

Do you crave communication as much as caffeine or nicotine?

What if you took a full day off? No phone, no email, no texting, no surfing the web. No nothing. Could your business survive without you? How long would it take before you were ‘jonesing’ for contact?

Could or would the business survive a day without the ability to ask you a question, and get an answer? Have you made yourself that indispensable? Or is that just self-delusion?

Is it possible to take a 10-day vacation, far away from any kind of electronic communication? How would that make you feel? Could you relax or would you lose your mind?

Are you really indispensable or has 24-7 instant communication just created an addiction that makes you feel that way? Are the people who work with you or for you, your clients, and the business support world around you, going to come to an abrupt halt without you?

Let me give you a wake up call. If you get struck by lightning, tomorrow, you’ll be missed. Your passing will create some kind of immediate chaos, but make no mistake, you’re not indispensable. The rest of the world will move on.

Your business acumen and special talents will be missed, but you’ll be replaced, however imperfectly, much sooner than one might think.

Do I have your attention?

Shut off the computer. Turn off the cell phone. Turn off the TV.

Read a book. Hug someone close to you. Call an old friend. Go watch a comedy and laugh. Listen to some of your favorite music on CD. Light a candle. Add to this list.

If you can’t make any of these things happen, easily, you’re in big trouble.

Take some time to consider your business situation, your friendships, your lifestyle, your country, your personal and family relationships, and your ability think quietly and clearly.

Are you really indispensable? Or are you just a workaholic? Are you addicted to high-tech communication? What IS your story?

If you’re not sure, maybe it’s time to figure it out… while you still have some life left to enjoy.

Oh, wedding marketing will still be important when you clear your head. In fact, the stars may align very easily. Amazing how simple that would be.

Simplicity… Good word. It’s worth rediscovering.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

Terminating staff as a motivational tool

Employees (full time and part time) often have quite a different view of the business climate, and their own self worth, from business owners or upper management.

One of the annoyances for small business owners, when times are challenging, is the feeling that you are marketing to generate work for your staff, but, at the end of the day. there isn’t much money left for you. Even worse, when you call in a DJ for an assignment, too often, their first response is ‘about the money’ rather than thanking you for the work.

Perhaps NOW is the time for an all-staff meeting with all your troops to bring them current on the economy and your business climate.

Everyone needs a reality check, and should hear what actions you are taking to keep your business percolating. Even more important, all staff and DJ/Emcee talent need to hear from you, clearly and directly, what is expected from each individual, as part of an overall team effort. Specifically, you need to communicate what actions, small and large, will contribute to ongoing prosperity for everyone.

REALITY CHECK: Some people don’t get it! Don’t confront them in a group meeting, but make a mental note of it, and speak with them, individually, to make your case.

HERE’S A RADICAL THOUGHT: If need be, fire someone! When the workload suggests cutting back, you may have to let someone go. It is, of course, not fun to let someone go, just because business is slow.

However, if a staff member is not pulling their weight, don’t think that other employees don’t notice. Overlooking or tolerating second rate effort by one or more brings morale down, throughout the entire company.

Am I suggesting firing someone may be a motivational tool. Yes, that’s precisely what I’m suggesting.

Firings, if deemed necessary, should be handled quietly, clearly and swiftly. Then, depending on the circumstance, you should communicate, to the rest of the team, why a termination occurred. It is better to have nine, highly motivated, busy employees, than ten people, with not-quite-enough-work-to-go-around.

Tough times require tough decisions. Is this a marketing issue? Absolutely! The people who work for you should appreciate how hard you work to make the cash register ring. Sometimes they don’t. Enlisting their total effort and attention in reliability, relationship marketing, and performance is what’s needed.

Prosperity covers up all kinds of waste and incompetence. Today, you need to be a lean and mean marketer and manager, surrounded by highly motivated, competent, positive, and appreciative employees. Anything less should be unacceptable.

All hands on deck!

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

Recession Wedding Marketing Tip: Don’t Participate

For many people, 2008 has been a lousy year. As of the last week, it looks like things will become more difficult before they improve.

There will be big headlines and bad news throughout the printed and electronic media. Pundits will be interviewed on the cable news channels. Some will speak in jargon. Others in plain English. All will give advice.

Here’s some plain English wedding marketing advice, even thought you didn’t ask. Don’t be Chicken Little when it comes to wedding marketing and your business. If you believe the sky is falling, and act as such, it will fall on you.

One thing is certain. Some businesses will be left, dead, at the side of the road, over the next year or so. Job 1 is to not be part of that group. Job 2 is, not-just-to-survive, but to prosper.

80/20 Rule – As it applies to type of business you do.

This is likely not the time to add a whole range of services to your business. Concentrate on what brings in the most revenue, and what your company is recognized for.

Do not attempt to put your peers on a crash course of other services you are now-going-to-provide-in-hopes-of-more-income. Rather, be laser-like in your approach.

80/20 Rule – As it applies to the calendar.

Some markets have specific wedding seasons. Others, in steadier climates, have only mild shifts in demand during the year.

If January is not wedding season in your market, but May is, then focus on closing every sale for a May event. Sell out every Saturday, and book every possible off-day event on Sundays, Friday evenings, or whatever the prospect chooses.

The market will not change for you in January, now matter how much you ‘will it.’

80/20 Rule – As it applies to the clients’ needs.

Despite what each of us may want to believe, not all wedding services are equally important to its success. Event people who are wealthy, are less prosperous today, than yesterday. This may not truly affect their ability to pay for their only-daughter’s wedding, but it affects their comfort level with spending money. Their mental outlook becomes their actual behavior.

It may be common sense to note that cutting the guest list is the fastest and most efficient way for the bride to conserve money. However, weddings are an emotional buy, and often times there is a cascading effect of bad decision making when under stress. Everyone’s stress has just grown geometrically.

For example, people in the wedding favor business may have a very tough sell. In my view, there is probably no category of wedding expense that is easier to do away with than favors. On the other hand, the dollar investment in music and facilitating the wedding reception become even more important in lean times. One can have a champagne and cake reception on a shoestring budget, but people will remember whether they danced and had a great time.

80/20 Rule – As it applies to your referral base.

80% of your referrals come from 20% of your contacts. Believe it! Now, as you appropriately reconnect with your referral base, don’t beg or grovel for business. Ask what you can do for them. Shock them by asking for NOTHING, and offering YOUR assistance.

Everyone is, or will be, feeling the pinch. If you think of yourself, first, always, you’re missing the essence of relationship building. Quality networking is getting together with your peers and strengthening those relationships.

Start a monthly breakfast club with your best networking partners (one in each wedding service category). Make the group people you can talk openly with, and confide in. Talk business, problems, opportunities, and mutual support. It can be organic or it can be structured. Just surround yourself with positive people who run quality businesses.

That’s enough for one post. As always, think about what I’ve written, and filter it, as it applies to you. Then take massive action.

One more thing… Don’t watch or read too much bad news. It’s bad for your outlook. Go see a comedy. Watch football or your favorite TV show.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

Blogging and Web 2.0 – Video Podcast from Wedding MBA

This video podcast, is the second in a series from Brandon Mulnix (Modern Photographics) from West Michigan Wedding Association, recorded at the Wedding MBA.

Brandon interviews Andy Ebon of The Wedding Marketing Blog. The 8-minute segment covers some of the questions addressed in his general session presentation on blogging. Also, Brian asks Andy to do some crystal-ball-gazing about the near future of the web.

Andy Ebon

The Wedding Marketing Blog

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