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What Type of Bride Do You Prefer to Work With

March 22, 2011 By 9 Comments

Are you a wedding planner, bridal shop owner, makeup artist, photographer, videographer, DJ, or florist?

If you are a wedding professional, you have probably seen your fair share of different bride personalities.

Working in the wedding world can be exciting, fun, stressful, and sometimes even upsetting.

It can be a better experience if you are working with a bride that you truly enjoy!  What type of bride you do prefer working with?  Take a look at the following classifications of brides and make your pick!

Bridezilla

A bridezilla is probably one of those most difficult types of brides to work with.  This bride will want everything to go her way, no matter what.  It can be stressful dealing with a bridezilla because you may always feel as if nothing is good enough.  It’s important to remember that you just have to try to please her as best you can so that everything goes as smoothly as possible.  It is important to remain calm and stay professional throughout the entire process.  Try to think ahead, so that you can anticipate any problems that may arise and you will know how to fix a problem so that the bride is happy.

The Dream Bride

The dream bride is exactly the kind of bride that every wedding professional wants to work with.  She is appreciative, easy to communicate with and understanding.  While she may have some special requests, and has her own idea of how the wedding will run, she does not make your life difficult!  This is usually the best type of bride to work for.  Make sure to impress this type of bride, as she probably has other friends who are just as polite and kind.  You may be able to get a great referral!

You’ve probably seen both of these types of brides throughout your professional career.  It is always important to remember to provide excellent customer service no matter how difficult a bride may be.  With the help of a wedding pro assistant, you can make sure that each bride is happy with the services that you offer.  An assistant can help to check in with brides throughout the process.  Always try to please brides by going above and beyond in everything that you do.

If you are want to continue to bring in more business, it is important to analyze your bridal marketing plan. You will want to appeal to a certain type of bride.  Consider looking at the way that you explain your services when doing your wedding business marketing.  You can improve your wedding marketing by trying different advertising methods.

It may be a good idea to reach brides in new ways.  Consider using the internet, trade shows, and mobile media.  With time, effort, and planning you can be sure to have a successful marketing plan that will allow you to bring in more bridal business!

Don’t know, ask me how!

Filed Under: Featured, Wedding & Event Professionals Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Dominate Your Local Bride Market

March 22, 2011 By 9 Comments

Dominate your local bride market

The goal? Local market domination.

The game plan? Implementation of smart online and offline marketing tactics.

Let’s imagine you’re a blushing soon-to-be-bride and you’ve come to the realization that you need help planning your wedding.

So you set out to find yourself a wedding planner. Where do you turn first?

You probably start asking your friends if they know any great local wedding planners. If you don’t have any luck there, you’re probably going to work on finding someone close by.

Think about it. Brides are more likely to connect with you if you live nearby so put yourself in front of their faces so they just can’t ignore you!

Local is big right now. You can tell because Google’s jumping all over it.

Search is becoming much more localized which is a good thing for you (and for the brides looking for you). Most people will be searching specifically on a phrase like: wedding planner [town name]. FYI, Google has many services that will help you show up on in those results.

When it comes to online local marketing you should be using Facebook and Twitter and other similar tools to create a buzz about your wedding planning business too. (Hey, brides talk!)

Then there’s the whole offline marketing racket. You should be out and about, networking and getting familiar with the local brides. You want to become very well known as the local wedding planner to use.

Contact me today for help developing and implementing a marketing plan that will help you dominate your local market.

Filed Under: Featured, Local Area Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Attracting Brides with Mobile Media Marketing

March 22, 2011 By 11 Comments

Advertising your wedding planning business in the [insert big yawn here] Yellow Pages and Ye Olde Daily Newspaper?

In the words of a famous (balding) friend of Oprah’s, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

Unless you live somewhere on the planet yet to be connected to the Internet, these old fashioned methods of advertising are just plain useless.

The demographic that makes up the majority of brides [unless you’re marketing solely to the nursing home sector] don’t normally use the Yellow Pages to find anything and they generally read their news online or on their mobile device [the same place they go instead of the phone book].

The way we do business has been rewritten in the past few years.

It’s all about making meaningful connections.

So let’s thing about how we might connect with these brides who are no longer flipping through newspapers or Yellow Pages thanks to their handy, stuck-to-them-like-glue mobile devices…

Ahah!

We use a new medium…the mobile devices themselves.

Sounds kind of brilliant doesn’t it?

Use the power of mobile media to connect with brides by sending them important reminders, updates about the status of their wedding, any new specials you’re offering so they can send referrals to you or just to check in on how they’re doing.

You can integrate your mobile media marketing campaign with social media too and make it even more fun and uber effective. [Yes, I said uber.]

Run contests! Place mobile phone advertisements to attract new brides and laser in on your local area.

Just take a minute and chew on these numbers [and remember that by the time you’re done chewing the numbers have likely climbed way up again]. For the last quarter of 2010, the following are the ratios in the United States of all mobile phone users:

•    iPhone – 6.75%
•    Android: 7.75%
•    Blackberry: 8.53%

And what do we know about people with phones like these?

They use the heck out of them.

Hop on that bandwagon! Ask me how.

Filed Under: Featured, Mobile Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

New Developments

August 9, 2010 By 5 Comments

Well, I guess it’s time to officially, publicly announce that I am no longer operating as the leader of a Multi-VA team.

*sigh* There. It’s out. That feels better.

I gave it a good go. I honestly thought at the time that bigger was better and that by putting together an awesome team I would be able to conquer the world (virtually) but that isn’t exactly what happened.

I found myself consumed under a pile of work – because my team really was amazing. Our clients loved us (thank you) and kept wanting more, more, more!

But I felt like my values were being compromised. I was too busy managing the business to be the wife/mother/person I want Larissa to be.

So there is no more Seven Winds Multi-VA team.  I am working by myself.

That’s right I am only working with Wedding Professionals.  It is important that I focus all of my time and attention on my passion and supporting those who have a “love for weddings.”

There are big changes on the horizon for myself and my business. Changes I’m not quite ready to announce yet, but they are very cool. I now know what I am truly meant to do and I’m working on getting to that place where I am doing just that.

Stay tuned for developments!

Filed Under: Virtual Assistance

OBM Larissa Parks Nominated for two Assist U Awards

August 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I’m honored to announce today that I’ve received two (count ‘em…two!) nominations in this year’s Assist U Community Recognition Awards.

One is for the 2010 VA of the Year and the other is for the 2010 Techie of the Year. That one I’m pretty excited about because I do take pride in my technical skills!

In case you haven’t been following along this has been a very transitional year for me and it’s been full of changes (more on that later).I’ve been spending a great deal of time doing different training programs including one  that will make me an Infusionsoft expert (when I’m done) and another that gave me 1ShoppingCart expert status. I’ve also taken the exhaustive OBM Certification program.

(Psst….don’t tell anyone, but I’d really like to win the title of 2010 VA of the Year. I was nominated last year and so if I don’t win this year I’m going to develop a Susan Lucci complex.)

Dang it’s hard to type with your fingers crossed…. :-)

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , , ,

Infusionsoft expert at your service!

June 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Here we are on June 21 – the first day of summer – but it feels like I was just setting my New Year’s Resolutions! Speaking of resolutions, last week I started working on one of my goals for 2010 by enrolling in Infusionsoft Bootcamp.

In case you haven’t heard of Infusionsoft, it basically replaces your need for having a stand-alone email marketing system, shopping cart and CRM (Customer Relationship Management system).

Infusionsoft users can manage all of these critical components of an Internet business from one efficient, effective and highly integrated dashboard.

I’m busy learning how to set up and customize an Infusionsoft account, how to manage follow-up sequences, set up products and payment plans. I won’t lie, there’s a ton of other stuff to learn about order forms, templates, refunds, broadcasting and affiliate programs. But when I’m done, I will be a superstar and you will want to hire me to set up your account because trust me – you don’t want to do this yourself. (Holy hard work Batman!)

It actually might not hurt to contact me right now because I’m about to get a lot more popular. Give me a shout today and we’ll schedule you in for the minute I’m ready to transition you over to Infusionsoft or to take over your existing account.

Now I better get back to it – it is bootcamp you know!

Filed Under: Featured, Infusionsoft Tagged With: , , , , , ,

I’m a 1Shopping Cart Expert!

April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Thank goodness it’s Friday. All this training I’ve been taking is really wearing me out. But don’t worry! I love learning and I’ve scheduled in lots of time to relax this weekend. (I definitely see a glass of wine and a bubble bath in my near future.)

Now I’m getting off track.

See…I told you a little while ago about how I’m now a Certified Online Business Manager but since then I’ve gone ahead and taken another very important course – this time from The Shopping Cart Queen, Christina Hills. That’s right! I’m now Certified in 1ShoppingCart! That’s great news for my clients because I can help them get more out of their carts now. Heck I’ll be able to take over the entire e-commerce aspect of their businesses if they want me to!

If the extent of your knowledge about shopping carts is how to put stuff in them and you have an online shopping element to  your site, we need to talk! Just not this weekend please. I have plans :)

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

I’m officially an Online Business Manager!

April 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

Wow, am I tired. I mentioned in my last post that you wouldn’t be hearing from me in awhile and I’m coming back to announce that I just earned my certification as an Online Business Manager! Yay me! I’m a Certified OBM!

In case you haven’t heard the phrase ‘Online Business Manager’ before, it’s defined as:

“A virtually based support professional who manages online based businesses, including the day-to-day management of projects, operations, team members and metrics.”

Sounds sort of similar to the definition for a Virtual Assistant, I know, but it’s different. A VA does tasks for clients but an OBM focuses more on the managerial role, strategy and project management. Besides, I am a firm believer in continual education so I can help my clients in as many ways as possible.

Of course I picked up loads of new skills and future clients – I hope you appreciate what I just went through for you.

OBM Training is a five month program but I did it in three days. Intense…ALL DAY…three days. I then did one entire week of grueling and rigorous certification. ONE WEEK. Those five days were spent performing real life strategy projects, working for actual six-figure and seven-figure clients. I created project plans, mapping and techniques to help the clients grow their businesses.

So there you have it. Larissa Parks the Virtual Assistant is now also Larissa Parks the Online Business Manager.

And I look forward to serving new and existing clients in an even bigger way!  Well, let me get back to spring cleaning, because a lot of changes are about to happen.

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Please excuse the dust, it’s spring cleaning time!

March 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There are some very big changes happening behind the scenes here at Seven Winds and I want to take a break from the blog to focus our energy on the direction this business will soon be heading in.

I  know what you’re thinking, “Now, why on Earth would you just stop keeping your blog updated when you’ve gained some momentum recently?”

My best answer to that is that it could possibly do us more harm than good to be blogging without knowing for certain who, exactly, we’re going to be marketing to come April 1st and frankly, blogging is too much work to be wasting valuable post energy on irrelevant topics.

Now, this new plan being cooked up isn’t something I just plucked out of thin air, but I’m being completely transparent right now when I say that I haven’t ironed out all the details yet and until I do I’m not prepared to launch anything or to be blogging about it.

There are other spring cleaning items that are taking place around here as well, changes that are collectively going to improve our clients’ experience working with us and that will make team members happier…including letting go clients who are not holding up their end of our working arrangement.

So…we’ll be falling off the radar for a couple of weeks but my question to you in the meantime is this:

When did you last do some spring cleaning in your business?

  • Are you still doing things that aren’t working?
  • Are you holding on to clients because they pay you, even though they make you miserable?
  • Have you brushed off your marketing materials lately?
  • What about an updated list of service offerings or some spiffy new content?

Come on, guys, spring has sprung and it’s time to get serious about getting rid of the business clutter to ensure a healthy, happy rest-of-the-year!

You pick up your mop and pail and we’ll see you in April!

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , ,

Micro-managers need not apply

March 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I’m surprised at how many of the VAs on my team react when I give them full control over a project. See…I am not a micro-manager. I never appreciated being micromanaged a hundred years ago when I was an employee and I won’t put up with it today as a business owner.

I choose the best of the best when it comes to the people I add to my team. They’re the experts at what they do, so I trust they’re doing the projects they’re assigned to the best of their ability. I oversee “bigger picture” projects and liaise with clients. I don’t need to be involved in every single project because, quite frankly, I’m busy enough with building the business, keeping it humming and signing on clients!

Besides, the reason I’ve added these professionals to my team is because they’re skilled in areas I am not…for the most part. Trust me, I’m not getting in the bookkeeper’s way because it would be a waste of my time (and hers) to be in her business all the time because she knows what she’s doing.

I’m not going to give my copywriter a list of guidelines about writing press releases before I ask her to write one. I have her on board with me because she knows what she’s doing. I trust her and everyone else on my team to do what they do best.

Fancy that.

Unfortunately, this trust factor is a rarity to most people who have ever worked admin in an employee role. We’ve all been micromanaged at one time or another and we’ve all hated it. We’ve called that micro-manager nasty names behind his (or her) back and complained to our spouses about them after a long day at work.

If you consider yourself a micro-manager you do not want to enter into a contract with us at Seven Winds, or with any VA anywhere for that matter. You will not be popular.

The whole point of partnering with a virtual assistant is to free you up to do other things. That means you need to give your VA control over her tasks, otherwise, you’re completely defeating the purpose of the relationship.

All that will get you is one frustrated VA and the feeling that working with a VA is taking up more of your time than you expected.

That’s a classic symptom of micromanagement. It wastes your time and it’s precisely why you would be much better off hiring yourself an in-house assistant who will put up with the constant stream of instructions and over-the-shoulder-looking.

So you have fun with that while we go ahead and make a real difference in the lives and the businesses of the trusting business owners we choose to align ourselves with. And if you know some entrepreneurs like that, send ‘em our way. We pay referrals.

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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