Chapter 7: How to Find Clients When Just Starting Out

What I did when starting out: 

• Styled shoots
• Helps you build relationships with fellow wedding vendors
• Gives you professional marketing photos
• Forces you to learn the printing process and methods
• Cold emailing wedding venues to introduce yourself
• Collect a list of emails of wedding venues near your location
• Simply introduce yourself
• Don’t sell your services or be pushy 
• Provide them with your business information, your offerings/services, your availability
• Active on instagram 
• Interacting with wedding vendors local to you
• Getting your name out there
• Shouting your offerings from the rooftop 
• Sharing your business on your personal facebook page and social media
• Friends and family will likely be your first clients but you want them to share their great experience with their friends and family
• Word of mouth is huge
• Wedding shows
• I don’t recommend these lightly because I know it’s a ton of money and a ton of work for little to no return
• However, when starting out the best thing you can do is get your business in front of eyes of potential clients
• Collect emails and start your email list early
• Email list
• Start building an email list as soon as you start your business
• Send 1-2 emails a week to your list with updates, offerings, photos, etc.
• Most wedding clients don’t book on a whim, it requires planning and thought. Having them on your email list ensures that your business will continue to get in front of their eyes during the planning process so they won’t forget your business
• To entice people to join your mailing list, offer an opt-in but don’t give away your services for free or do something that is going to make you lose money
• An example of opt-ins are offering a free PDF of a wedding planning timeline or more specifically a wedding stationery timeline
• Use this time of not being crazy busy with clients as a great opportunity to solidify your systems and make sure everything works smoothly. 
• Talk through your systems and go through the motions on your end to make sure it makes sense and there are no lags or issues 
• I’m in my 4th year of business and just this year do i really feel  like my systems are how i want them to be
• Next weeks chapter is all about systems and how to start them and perfect them as well as what programs and platforms I use to streamline my systems.