Just a day or so, ago, I posted an item about an effort by businesses in Naples, Florida that have experienced a drop on business inquiries due to misconceptions about beach conditions, related to the BP oil spill.

Coincidently, USA today ran a front page article on the same issue, today. The article describes the greater geographical issue affecting businesses for general travel, destination weddings, and the like.

Thank you to the Naples Chapter of the National Association of Wedding Professionals for inviting to present a seminar and meeting talk, yesterday. It was a treat to meet so many new people and enjoy this most beautiful area in Southwest Florida.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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The Wedding Marketing Authority, Andy Ebon is en route from the the DJ Think Tank Conference in Miami to the National Association of Wedding Professionals, Naples Chapter.

The afternoon seminar (registration at 2:30pm, 3-6pm) topic will be: Building A Focused Social Media Strategy.

Andy will also give a talk for the chapter’s general membership meeting, which begins at 6:30pm. The presentation is titled: Success By Association.

Both events will be held at The Naples Beach Hotel , 851 Gulf Shore Blvd North, Naples, Florida.

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The National Association of Catering Executives is holding its annual educational conference, NACE Experience 2010, at the Austin Hilton Downtown, Austin, Texas, July 25 -28.

Attendees will be offered a wide range of general session and breakout speakers, as well as numerous special events.

During the course of the festivities, NACE will hold its annual awards gala, honoring the best work of its members, in Industry, Chapter and Volunteer categories.

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Just finished attending, and speaking at, DJ Think Tank. This is an elite group of entertainment companies that gather, twice yearly. I have been working with the group since its inception in 2003, and contributing my rare blend of DJ industry experience and up-to-date marketing experience.

I was slotted for a 90-minute catch-all presentation of marketing and technology. Some reminder; but mostly solid explanation of recent developments, and some unveiled of the latest in technology, marketing, and software.

In preparing the presentation, I had a hunch about the iPad and how to cover it in this presentation (I have not bought mine, yet, for a variety of reasons that are not particularly important to this point. I do expect to buy one in the next couple of months).

First, it was interesting to look around the room and see what laptops people were using. Apple has a market share of 10% or less in laptops. In this room, one could see MacBooks in the hands of about 60% of the attendees. That was unusual.

My slide showed a handful of iPads and a headline stating: It’s an iPad world. I told a few stories abut what I have read and observed, and conversations I’ve had recently, with people who have been using an iPad.

Then, I asked for a show of hands: How many people own an iPad? Only about five hands went up. Inside, I was disappointed and thought, for a moment, that the next 30 minutes might go ‘in the tank.’ Not so fast my friend.

I asked the iPad owners how they were using their tech-toy in their businesses and room fairly exploded with ideas and applications. For reasons of confidentiality, I am not going to share all their brilliant ideas, but I am going to share two items that were very instructive.

1) I asked my friend, Ron, to share his experience about his iPad and his 7-year old. Ron has had his iPad for about 10 days. After having it just a few minutes, he put it in the hands of his daughter, and she went to work. She turned to him and asked, “Can I download this game…. it’s free..”

“How did you know about where to get the games?” he asked. “They show it on the commercials, Daddy.”

So much for that mystery. Within minutes, this youngster was using the iPad without hesitation or instruction. Shockingly intuitive.

2) At the end of 30 minutes of iPad sharing and  brainstorming, I asked the BIG QUESTION. “After this brief discussion about actual and possible uses of the iPad, by show of hands, how many expect to buy at least one iPad in the near future?” In a split second, the hands of three-quarters of the room shot up.

Owning a piece of new technology is not the point. The point is understanding the various ways one can utilize it to stand out and garner a competitive edge.

How are you using the iPad or any recent technology to gain a competitive edge?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Group

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My wonderful girlfriend, the lovely Jessica, is a singer and vocal coach. For the life of her, she can’t understand, for a moment, why anyone would want to hire a disc jockey for their wedding…. or any other function for that matter. Needless to say, this is a recurring source of amusement for me

A few years ago, she asked me: “What actually goes on a disc jockey convention?”

I said, “You get 1500 people together, most of whom work part time, and they entertain each other by either exaggerating the truth or lying to each other about their individual success.”

Clearly, my tongue was firmly implanted in my cheek, but, unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to the statement. I think when goes to national conferences or local networking/association meetings, you must filter what you hear. Taking any information, from a speaker or a peer should be examined for puffery and inaccuracy, but mostly for how it applies to your set of circumstances.

I specifically remember moderating a DJ TImes panel in Southern California about 25 years ago. Panel members were sharing marketing techniques that they employed to stay connected with former clients. One panelist started telling a fairy tale about an anniversary present he would give to every past wedding client. He represented that he would give them a bottle of champagne, identical to the one that they enjoyed on their wedding night…. blah, blah, blah.

My poker face is lousy in most situations. I’m sure I didn’t disguise my eye roll. As he sunk deeper and deeper into oblivion, I cut him short, and we moved on to the next panelist.

It is said that

“A mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.”

That is true enough, but is important to make sure your BS detector is fully charge. After all, I’m not going to be there for you at every moment.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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This post is the fifth of a recap series about a meeting of the Las Vegas Wedding Network. Seven brides spoke and answered questions about their wedding planning experience.

There comes a point for many brides where they become overwhelmed. For all the excitement and possibilities, when a bride begins to realize that she has lost control of the wedding day, it’s scary, upsetting, and potentially devastating.

You can hear that emotion from a newlywed who starts a sentence with… “If I had it to do again…”

There probably are not many brides out there who wouldn’t change something, if they could do it over. The issues are really these:

• Were you able to enjoy the day?
• Were you able to interact with your family and guests?
• Did you have to endure unnecessary family drama?
• Were the problems that came up, or mistakes that occurred, avoidable? If so, how?
• Were those problems or mistakes minor, or major, magnitude?

The surprising consensus, to me (and I’m sure many others in the audience), was NOT that bride’s admitted that they would have been well served by a wedding consultant…. but, that they didn’t realize everything that a wedding consultant could do for them.

SOUNDS LIKE A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY!!

In a presentation I made last September, at the Wedding MBA, I extolled the virtues of competent, well-trained wedding consultants. I sincerely believe that the process of wedding planning has become too complex and overwhelming for a one-time bride. There is too much information, too many choices, and too many ways to run off the rails in a big way.

Whether a bride is looking for a wedding consultant to carry out her vision, or lend more design ideas to the day, from my view, prevent really bad mistakes is the biggest value of a neutral party.

More than one bride expressed that their family members and wedding party had become a handful or worse. They voiced, to a one, that having that delegating some of the wrangling to a wedding consultant would have freed them up to enjoy themselves, and leave the drama behind.

My conclusion: This is a public relations and education issue that, if conquered, should translate into more work for qualified wedding consultants.

There are now many organizations, associations, and institutions of higher learning training and certifying wedding consultants. Exactly what are they doing to educate the public? The various wedding entertainment shows have their place. Inspiration, mainly. However, entertainment is not a substitute for education of the public by the organizations that train wedding consultants.

THAT would appear to be the challenge from observations from this panel discussion and others, and the professional opinions of many wedding professionals.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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This post is the third of a recap series about a meeting of the Las Vegas Wedding Network. Seven brides spoke and answered questions about their wedding planning experience. –

As the audience soaked up the question to, and answers from, the panel of 7 brides (no brothers), one could tell what those listening wanted to hear.

Where you getting information, what value did you put on it, and what influenced your decision making?

Some of the discussion points included:

• All-Inclusive Venues – Brides that selected these where short on time, or overwhelmed by process, so this seemed like a convenient route. But as they moved forward, they opted out on some of the venue-exclusive-vendors, and chose ones that suited them better. They viewed this as an unfortunate excess expenditure.
• Credibility – Brides talk to brides, who are in the planning process during a similar period. This was both in person (at bridal shows and business showcases) as well as on wedding chat boards. The tipping point here was mostly on the negative. Brides were put off by one business bad mouthing other businesses, and dropped them like a hot rock, when hearing that from other brides. in my opinion, they put good value on reading lots of reviews from former brides and too much value on the opinion of brides-in-process. The latter has not had a complete vendor experience. They don’t know the final result, so it appeared to me that was, at best, incomplete information.
• Reciprocal Links: Brides put significant value of a businesses that appeared to work together on a regular basis, as shown by link directories on their websites. One bride said her result from working with a cluster wedding vendors, such as these was: “Like having seven wedding planners working together, in concert. They were so comfortable communicating with each other, I didn’t have to give anything a thought.”

Here is the big question that wasn’t asked:

In your planning experience, when it came to Preferred Vendor Lists, Exclusive Vendor Lists, All-Inclusive arrangements, did anyone explain a financial arrangement between venue and vendor?

The issue for me, is an ethical one: Transparency

A venue can represent that they only working with vendors that know their property, its guidelines, and perform well for the client (OK… that sounds pretty good). However, if they are receiving a significant referral fee for this arrangement, they formula changes. Is the bride truly getting access to the wedding vendor, appropriately suited for her wants and desires. Or, is a bride over-limited because the host venue is raking in invisible revenue, without disclosure?

Disclosure and Transparency: Two important words that didn’t come up in the discussion. Wish I had remembered to ask the question. It’s the kind of verbal grenade I love throwing into the middle of a room and watching people squirm in their sites.

I’m not a wedding vendor, these days, so I can do that.

Would love your comments on Transparency and Disclosure, if you have the gumption to speak up in a public forum.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Seven brides, married from as recently as 4 months ago, to four years ago, shared the good, the bad, and the ugly at a Las Vegas Wedding Network meeting, hosted at the Aliante Hotel & Casino.

There is so much information to share that I will make multiple posts over the next week to cover the range of issues.

To provide some context, Moderator, Ricky Gulati (Memory Lane Videography) started by asking what type of venue each bride selected, and why. That opening qualifier had an even more significant 2-part follow up.

1. Approximately, what was your initial budget or budget range for your wedding?
2. Did you stay within your budget, or did you go over it? If you went over it, by how much?

The dollar-numbers were not the important answer, here, as they were approximate. What clearly stood out was that six out of seven brides exceeded their budget. The range of excess was from 50% to 200%. In real dollars, these cost overruns were in tens of thousands of dollars.

Observation – Conclusion – Reality Check – Opinion

By their own admission, the brides didn’t really have a budget. They had a chunk of money, but didn’t really know the cost of things. Moreover, when they got into the process of planning, particularly when attending bridal shows, they discovered opportunities for products and services they didn’t know existed.

A good example of that was uplighting. More than one bride commented, that once demonstrated,

uplighting was a dramatic decor upgrade. They wanted it, and bought it.

That comes under the heading of “You don’t know, what you don’t know.” It’s not reasonable to have planned or budgeted for something you didn’t know existed.

Several brides expressed that “When I found a particular vendor that I clicked with, price went out the window.” This seemed to particularly important with vendors, such as photographers, who work at close range with a couple, for many hours.

Overages were absorbed by parents, in-laws, or the couples, themselves.

Worth A Read: A while back, I posted a provocative item, titled: A ruthless discussion of the term ‘Budget Bride’ and wedding decision making

It relates well to this post, and the ones that will follow, about the bridal panel.

Congratulations to the program organizers for putting on a fine, informational show.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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As posted on this blog, The Wedding Marketing Authority, Andy Ebon, has become a regular contributor for the new wedding publication, Wedlock Magazine. As part of its regular offerings, Wedlock will be presenting two webinars, monthly, to its subscribers.

No time has been wasted in putting Andy to work. He has submitted his first column for Wedlock‘s second issue. In rapid succession, Wedlock is inviting you to sample a webinar presentation, by Andy, titled: Business Success Through Associations.

This promises to be more than a basic networking presentation. Rather, it will get into more complex issues about relationship building and the unadvertised benefits and pitfalls of involvement in trade associations and networking groups.

You are invited to participate, with my compliments (that means, at no charge). Here is the complete text of the invitation by Wedlock Editor-In-Chief, Jayne Hallock.

You are  invited to register for next week’s webinar, which occurs on Wednesday at 7pm EST. Our guest host is the irrepressible, very experienced and uber-charming Andy Ebon.

Not only is he our new WedLock columnist (look for his debut column in next month’s issue), but he’s agreed to talk to WedLock readers about how to squeeze the most out of their association memberships! We all have them…now let’s really put them to work for our businesses.

This webinar,  titled “Business Success Through Associations” and here’s what Andy and Chris will cover:

“Andy will take us on a guided tour of the various kinds of organizations that call for involvement by wedding industry businesses, and appropriate strategies and techniques for maximizing one’s investment of time and effort.

Some of the takeaways will include:

• What are realistic expectations for your involvement?
• What the *published* benefits of membership in an organization…and what are the hidden gems?
• The differences between a 501 C-3 non-profit organization and a for-profit organization.
• Knowing an opportunity for a good donation when you see it, and understanding how and when to say “No.”
• Understanding the difference between membership, volunteerism, and leadership.
• Which organizations, by type, and which, specifically should get a closer look from you.

Remember – the first hour or so is dedicated to Andy’s presentation, and then we open the lines for questions!

Click here to register now, and reserve your spot!

~Jayne Leigh Hallock
Editor-In-Chief
Wedlock Magazine

Hope you’ll join the webinar. Please feel free to share this post and spread the word.

Thanks in advance,

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Sunday is a travel day, on Southwest Airlines to Nashville, TN. Bridal Show Promoter, Fred Jacob, is hosting myself and Sonny Ganguly of Wedding Wire, for a full day wedding marketing seminars. The session will be hosted, Monday, at the Franklin Marriott.

Fred promotes bridal shows in several cities, and also publishes Premier Bride, and The Pink Book.

Looks to be an exciting couple of days.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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