Getting On The Preferred Vendors List

  by Rick Brewer

I often hear from people that the #1 effective marketing resource of Brides who sign a contract with them is word of mouth. You won’t get an argument out of me that word of mouth is the most powerful marketing out there. When a prospect who hasn’t done business with you comes to you “warmed up” by someone else who has built or earned the trust with the prospect, you have a substantially higher potential that the trust will be passed on to you. Here is the key; more trust = higher chance of gaining a new customer. That is why word of mouth is such an effective method of marketing.

The problem for wedding professionals with word of mouth is that few if any have a solid strategy on 1) how to get the leads coming in the first place (most are accidental, not a planned response by the person gaining the leads- simply a nice action by the referrer of the leads) and 2) how to keep the leads flowing. (they simply don’t get enough or get them on a regular basis)

Fact is, there are many wedding businesses that have a steady stream of Brides coming through their doors due to the effective marketing they have done. Perhaps that marketing is through paid sources or because they have been doing it for a long time, nevertheless, they have Brides coming through their doors who may not have purchased what you sell.

This is no big, wild, hairy secret.

In fact, everyday of the week, there are wedding vendors who walk into these venues and bridal salons who have spent the time, money and energy to make their marketing work with a big stack of business cards and brochures. These vendors are expecting that because they have stumbled across the idea of putting their stuff out there, these sources of Brides (bridal salons and venues) will not only embrace them with open arms, but will trumpet their arrival. What usually happens is not what the hopeful referred (the vendor) wants to happen; their cards and brochures get set aside (sometimes trashed) because the salon or venue has no reason to refer them. It takes more than simply dropping off some cards to ride the coattails of their effective marketing.

There are techniques that work and there are techniques that do not. If you were to maximize both sets of these techniques, your business would stand a dramatic increase in not just signed contracts but also would be getting those contracts at the lowest investment out there in your marketing dollars.

(that’s right- spend less money to get more clients. No joke-it happens all the time)

http://theweddingmastermind.com/get-on-the-list

I have worked one on one with some of the best in the industry who have truly mastered these techniques. Further, I have been able to sit with both hundreds of Bridal salons and reception sites to find out what it takes to get on their preferred vendors list. You may be surprised at what it takes to get on their lists (and even more surprised at what it takes to stay on the list and actually get referred).

That is why I compiled my latest, “Getting on the preferred vendors list. The 10 things to do and the 11 things to NEVER do for more word of mouth business)

http://theweddingmastermind.com/get-on-the-list

This CD is being offered at an introductory price (click the above link to see) then it will go to the regular price of $39 (worth that and much more, but much less if you act in the next three weeks- by the way this is something you will want to act on now because getting on the list is not an immediate thing and you will need to start the process so you are there when the new crop of Brides start to shop for their weddings)

Source:  Rick Brewer, Get More Brides  www.getmorebrides.com