In this modern world, many have forgotten the power of in-person networking. So much now happens online that people are slowly overlooking the value of real-life connections in both business and life. In this episode, hosts Heather Loree Fier and Jamie Wolfer dive into the ways networking in real life have grown their businesses. Human connection is the key to success in the wedding industry. The ladies explore how you can leverage this technique and empower you to grow your network.
—
Listen to the podcast here:
Important Links:
In-Person Networking: The Power Of Human Connection
Step Away From Your Computer And Connect In Real Life To Add Rocket Fuel To Your Business And Life!
Heather: In this episode, we are going to be talking about the power and magic of networking, but in real-life networking, because there is a difference. We are going to be talking about what networking is and it isn’t just those typical networking meetings that everyone thinks of and gets a little nervous about. We’re also talking about why it’s important. The practical, emotional and learning opportunities that come from networking with other vendors, whether within your specific field or in the wedding industry or even beyond in the business industry in general.
Jamie: We may also talk about some of our experiences in networking. There are some awesome opportunities coming up that we’re working on to encourage you to network. Enjoy this episode.
—
Jamie: We’re going to be talking all about the magic of networking. In real life, what networking is and why it’s important.
Heather: We’re going to talk about networking for real. What do you need to be doing and why you maybe even have been overlooking this and how powerful it can be in your business?
Jamie: This is something that I feel like I can fairly say for a long time, I always had this specific vision of what networking was. It was like, you put on a pencil skirt and some heels, you go stand around in a room and you talk to some other humans for about an hour-and-a-half to two hours. Make sure you have business cards and then you leave. That was networking in my mind. Maybe wine is involved, maybe small portions of cheese.
Heather: Maybe two glasses of wine max. You don’t want to get too toasty at this official networking event.
Jamie: It depends on how entertaining it is.
Heather: We’re going to break this open with the fact that networking comes in all formats. Even with the online world, you can be networking in the cyber world and connecting with people in Facebook groups. That’s a huge way to do it. You could be in a Mastermind. You could be going to a conference or a workshop. You could be going to one of those happy hour meet-ups, that’s a more traditional format. They come in all shapes and sizes and anyway you cut it, it’s a magical thing and it’s going to add up to some big benefits for your business.
Jamie: It tends to be a powerful tool. Once you start networking, once you pop the fun, don’t stop. Thank you, Pringles, for coming up with a slogan that defines my life well. Usually, when I find something I enjoy, I’m like, “I’m in it,” which is why I own many houseplants. There’s something about networking that once you start connecting with people, especially people in the same industry who are like, “I understand where you’re coming from.” It is liberating and it’s grounding at the same time.
Heather: It’s getting over that initial hurdle of a little bit of fear to connect with other people. All of us have that inner dialogue. I’m not only hearing my inner dialogue, but I’m assuming we all have it where we’re a little bit unsure of ourselves at moments and thinking like, “I don’t know if I’m established enough to be at this event and talk to other people in this industry. What are they going to think?” The thing is all of us have that. We’re all doubting ourselves at some level and coaching ourselves through it and giving ourselves a pump-up talk in the bathroom in front of the mirror. Maybe that’s just me.
Don't be so afraid to even get outside of the wedding industry when networking because ultimately, you might even learn more there. Click To TweetJamie: No, not just you.
Heather: You should be doing that to get yourself out there to start talking to people because it opens up a bunch of opportunities. Do you want to talk about some of the ways that this networking can be so powerful, Jamie?
Jamie: I would love to. I thought you’d never ask. Thanks, Heather.
Heather: No problem.
Jamie: Let’s be honest, there’s a hugely practical element to networking, whether that’s with other vendors or other vendors in your specific genre or space. Let’s say something comes up. I’ve had this happen where I had a lead wedding planner become injured and I was booked at another event and I couldn’t leave the event that I was to go cover this other one. I was able to call up another planner in my network because we had met before and she had planners for me. She had a lead girl that she could send over. Practically speaking, there’s a huge element of networking that you have a fail-safe that you might not have had before.
Heather: That’s a basic reason and without any other aspect of this, that’s a huge benefit. You’ve got to do it at a level. If you don’t, you’re putting yourself out there where you have no backup plan.
Jamie: That’s why many of us have those clauses in our contracts that say, “If there’s some reason that I can’t be there, we will provide a replacement.” Some people will provide a refund, whatever that section is. Ours says, “We’ll provide a replacement for you. Don’t worry, we got you.” If you’re going to be as bold as to put that in your contract, then you have to make sure you have a network of like-minded vendors in your same category that you could rely on.
Heather: We both agree that we see that photographers do this exceptionally well. They embrace each other in a way and if they can’t fulfill a project for a client, they’re not going to hesitate to refer to someone else. Kudos on you guys, photographers. For some of the other verticals let’s say in this wedding industry, we’re not good at it. Wedding planners, sorry guys, we’re not killing it at this.
Jamie: We are not good at this at all. I still struggle with it. Heather, when you and I first started talking and you have your online course and it’s before you interviewed me for the Wedding Hacker Expo and I was like, “I developed an online course. Am I allowed to talk about it?” We’re competing but we’re not. Your response to me was like, “Yes, you can talk about it.” There still is the stigma with wedding planners like you’re my competition. We are two wedding planners with separate online courses coming together for a show simply because we see the power of networking. We decided to implement it because it’s become a powerful tool for both of us collectively.
Heather: I have some ridiculous overconfidence that everything always works out for the best when you are genuinely open and caring to people. Perhaps that’s crazy but that’s also why for me I’m like, “If you’re doing this and you’re delivering a great product to people, good for you. I’m going to do the same thing and the right people are going to find me that is meant to work with me. The right people are going to find you who are going to think you’re amazing and love what you do.”
The more people you know, the more opportunities you're going to have. Click To TweetJamie: There’s a tush for every seat and I do not have to be the seat for your tush.
Heather: Not every tush is going to fit perfectly on every seat. We’ve all got different tushies. It’s how it goes. Beyond this practical thing of covering your tush, what else have we got that’s good with networking?
Jamie: Emotional support. I don’t know about you guys, but my husband works in construction. He’s a general contractor. When I try to tell him about the wedding industry, he’s always like, “On the job,” because he deals with subcontractors and he is in charge of all of these vendors, there are many parallels between wedding planning and general contracting. However, there are times when all I want to do is throw something at his head because I’m like, “You don’t get it. You don’t understand.”
Construction is stressful and he works hard, but we have this extra emotional component when it comes to serving our clients, that people outside the industry are like, “Why don’t you say no?” “You don’t understand. I can’t say no, it’s their wedding day.” It’s probably material for a whole other show, you can’t say no. There are different elements. Having emotional support because an emotional job is radical. You talk to someone else who gets it as opposed to my husband who is like, “When the plumber was an hour late.” I’m like, “Not the same dear. It’s not even close.”
Heather: I’d say it’s also because the wedding is such an emotional moment for your clients. Even if you’re not handling anything that intense, and your perspective as a vendor because we’ve seen this over and over. Some of these things happen, not a big deal to us but the couple might react explosively or in a difficult way. Us taking that energy from them and having to process it, it’s easy to do if you’re connecting with someone else in the industry who gets it.
Jamie: That rolls nicely into another one of the greatest parts of this is specifically a sounding board. One thing that we do at the end of every single one of our events is I sit down with any assistant or assistants that I have with me and I’m like, “Kate, let’s talk about what went well, what our successes.” We do this at every single one. “Let’s talk about what went poorly and what we could’ve done to change it.” We’re at the point where we’ve been in business long enough where it’s like, “I don’t know if there’s a whole lot we could have done to change some of these things. It is what it is.” One of the benefits is we recovered well, but I enjoyed doing that with other vendors too.
How did this feel successful? When I can talk to a planner, a fellow planner who understands my mentality understands where I’m coming from, and I share an experience or I share a story and they say, “Talk to me. From someone who understands wedding planning but who’s not in this situation what do you see? Help me out here. Help me figure out how to navigate this. That can be contracts. That can be dealing with a difficult parent of a client that we had the circumstances pop up and I’ve never seen this before. Have you seen anything like this?” The other person goes, “Yes. Not a lot, but I’ve seen it and here’s what we did.” That sounding board option is incredible.
Heather: It also piggybacks into the idea of mentorship too because sometimes you don’t have that answer and finding other people in this industry who have been around longer or maybe had different experiences that you can learn from them and learn from each other. I sometimes see that young people are getting and going. They maybe are on the pulse of the trends and what tech’s out there and what new cool app is the place to be to get found by couples, where the people who’ve been around a while might have more of the logistical know-how or situational solutions that can be helpful. Bridging those gaps is a huge part of what can happen at these networking events too.
Jamie: Truly, we can learn so much from the people who’ve been in the industry for many years. Even though they don’t deal with social media or they may just have started. The wealth that they can provide on client interaction or wedding day timelines has so much value to it. That’s the last element of networking, the last benefit. Maybe not the last one, but the last one that we thought of is growth potential that you have and the ability to learn. It’s one thing to have a sounding board, someone who’s on your own level. It’s another thing to have a mentor, but to internalize it and then you become a better business owner, a better wedding planner, a better wedding photographer, videographer, caterer or a baker, whatever it happens to be. If you go to networking events or join networking groups and you do all of these things and then you choose to internalize it and apply it, the growth compared to not having these areas or not having these resources, it can’t be compared.
Heather: It gives you so much opportunity to hear what other people are doing that’s working and not working. There’s always new information out there, new approaches to things. Sometimes if you stay siloed off in your little bubble, even if you’re busy and things are going well with your business, it’s not going to allow you to stay up with where the industry is going. It’s also for the emotional stuff. For your mental health, it’s not that great to be isolated in a little bubble. Getting out there and having these relationships, you’re not just working in this industry but you have friends in this industry. You have a community that you can be a part of. It’s huge because ultimately we’re social creatures. Finding that within your workspace as an entrepreneur is huge.
In-Person Networking: When you are genuinely open and caring to people by delivering a great product, the right people meant to work with you are going to find you.
I know with entrepreneurship, there is a way bigger likelihood of different mental health issues and things like that because we are putting a lot on ourselves. We are isolated if we are not strategic and intentional about making it a community. That’s another enormous benefit of getting out there. I know it’s scary. I definitely would have been afraid to do that at certain points but once you get out there, you’ll find that it’s a lot simpler than you’re maybe envisioning.
Jamie: I’ll be honest, I went to my first official actual wedding vendor networking event. I hadn’t done it yet.
Heather: That was brave of you, Jamie. I’m proud of you.
Jamie: It was nerve-wracking. Honestly, the only reason I signed up is because another wedding vendor who I’ve known since high school, he’s been my big brother. I’m not going to say how many years. He called me up and he’s like, “I will cover your ticket if you come with me because I’m not going alone.” We were like, “There are going to be sharks. They’re going to smell blood in the water and they’re going to eat us.” Maybe that was my inner monologue. He was a little bit more confident going into it than I was. It turned out to be fun. I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to the next meeting, which is a huge bummer because I wanted to go. I went into this meeting being like, “This is going to suck.” We did have a plan to give each other some hand signal to bail if we needed to.
Heather: An emergency signal, that’s always smart.
Jamie: We didn’t need it. In fact, we were fine. It hit the end of the evening and we were one of the last fifteen people in the room we’re like, “We should probably go.” I was surprised by how not scary it was and I was petrified going into it.
Heather: All those other people at the event, they’re just people. They’re like you wanting to connect with other lovely humans that can connect with them, learn some things, grow a little bit and help each other. Don’t be afraid, guys. I’d say the best time for you to get started on going to network events is now. Look for opportunities and maybe some of them are wedding industry-specific, but I don’t even think it has to be that because a lot of businesses as Jamie mentioned with her husband in construction, there are a lot of overlaps. Someone who’s an entrepreneur in a completely different field can still teach you things that would help you develop a better website, improve your branding or some other random little technical aspect of something that doesn’t seem like they’d have any knowledge in the wedding field.
They have some business knowledge that can help you improve what you’re doing. I’d say don’t be afraid to even get outside of the wedding industry. You might even learn more there because you can straight up tell them like, “I don’t know diddly-squat about these Facebook ads,” or whatever this event is you go to and they can then give you all the guidance in the world. Maybe some of them are engaged and you can bring on some new clients or give them ideas or get their cousin’s phone number who needs a wedding planner or whatever the situation.
Jamie: There’s the biggest part that we haven’t even discussed yet, networking. If you get your face in front of other people’s faces and they like your face, personality and the sound of your voice, they’re going to recommend you.
Heather: If you’re trying to build up a local business as a vendor, the more people you know, the more opportunities you’re going to have. Think of a real estate agent. Real estate agents kill it at this. You know who your friends who are real estate agents. Sometimes they’re a little overly pushy. I’m not going to lie, sometimes my real estate friends are a little bit too eager to tell me about what they’re selling but they are never shy about it. They are people who put it out there and in that way when you do get to the point where you want to buy a house, you’re like, “I know the people I could talk to who can help me with this.” Don’t hold back. Get out there, meet new people and that’s more opportunities for business to come your way.
People do business with people. Click To TweetJamie: I don’t know if we’ve said this in the show so far. This is the first time I’m saying it. Prepare yourselves. People do business with people.
Heather: That is how it works.
Jamie: At the end of the day, if it’s a difference between $500 with you and the other guy, the people you’ve already connected with, the people you’ve already shown your face to, they’ve already heard your voice, they’re probably going to pick you over the other guy. If it’s a matter of networking at a wedding vendor event and you’re a wedding planner and you had a great experience with a lightened area photographer, you might recommend them because you’re like, “I met this person at such and such. I’m sure they’re within your price range. Why don’t you reach out to them?”
Those kinds of things because you have put through that effort of being like, “I’m going to go out. I’m going to talk to people. It’s going to be scary but I got my business cards and it’s going to be great.” I left that networking event and I had four of the other vendors email me being like, “It was great to work with you.” Two of them are requesting a meet up to grab a coffee. Another one requesting a phone call to connect further from one night of drinking Chardonnay and hanging out with people, don’t worry. It was only two glasses.
Heather: It was a white wine, which is a wise choice so your teeth didn’t get purple.
Jamie: The crusties around your lip.
Heather: You didn’t want that either. I want to add that this is something I’ve seen my husband do to an exponential degree. He quit his job within a month of us getting married, so that was exciting. He worked at a construction company too, a general contractor in the marketing department and he was like, “I’m going to be done with this. I’m going to start my own business.” I’m like, “We’re married. We’re doing this.” Of course, I was supportive and had been running a business for a while, I was like, “I know you can get to a good point but this might be a rough couple of years.” That man is the most social butterfly on the planet and it led to insane growth where he has done well for himself all because he was hitting the pavement, going to every event, talking to people and it opened doors.
One level of the business would happen and then the next and he levels up and meet people to move his business to levels that we didn’t ever expect it would grow to that quickly. I’ve seen it happen and I understand the power of this networking in a way. If I hadn’t seen it happen and play out like that, that over a decade he could go from being some unknown guy who showed up at some event, now he’s running the events and he’s the head speaker at huge conferences, I’m like, “This is impressive.” Also, he does have that social butterfly gene, he’s nailing it.
Even for people who don’t feel like they’re social, being there and showing up consistently and making those connections, it’s going to help you level up way faster than almost anything else. I jumped right in. When I first started doing wedding planning stuff, I mostly got referrals from friends or cousins of friends. I got to the point where I’m like, “I want to establish myself and meet a lot of great vendors and get the mojo going here.” I managed to pull together a networking event myself and threw it out there.
Jamie: It still blows me away that you were like, “I’m going to make my own.”
People are the key. So you need to get out and meet people. Click To TweetHeather: That’s all anybody ever does. That’s the funny thing with having a business, you look at some giant company and you’re like, “That’s impressive.” It was one person who started it and decided they were going to do it and slowly it transformed, morphed and grew into some big, huge corporation. It’s getting the momentum going. I found a restaurant that was launching this whole event aspect and I convinced them to cover the costs of food and drinks to have a bunch of industry people at the event.
I scoured all the vendor websites I could find and invited everybody to show up and I was the host, and then it put me in this position where I got to talk a little bit in front of people and get to welcome them to the event. It opened many conversations that from that point on, even though I was newer to the area, hadn’t established myself. I had leads left and right and it was awesome. That’s something for you guys to consider too. You could put together a networking event. If there’s not something locally, this might be a good thing for you to connect with other vendors.
Jamie: This is the perfect segue, Heather. Do you realize how well you set this up?
Heather: No problem. I got it.
Jamie: She set it and I’m going to spike it. Heather and I believe truly and deeply in the power of networking. This is coming from someone who had their first technically networking gig. I’m aware of that. I hear it. I’ve been doing networking in the wedding industry for a while, not in the traditional sense. We see so much value from connecting with our peers, other people, other wedding planners, other vendors, and being able to chat and compare notes like, “What does it look like for you?” We are in the process of putting together a networking event weekend. What are we calling it? Help me.
Heather: It’s going to be a weekend because we’ve also been reflecting on what we enjoy about networking events and what we do not like. We’re trying to make this lean in on those items we like and make it something where we get to spoil ourselves a wee bit and also get to know some amazing people and learn some helpful wedding industry knowledge.
Jamie: Honestly, it’s going to affect our lives. I know Heather and I are going to leave or go into this weekend and then leave this weekend with more knowledge than we had going into it. We know that it’s going to be a powerful tool for other people who attend it as well. We don’t have an official date yet.
Heather: It is in the works and it’s something we’re excited about because we think wedding planners are not open to networking, generally. We see this as an opportunity to change things and open up that dialogue, start working together and finding a way to support each other. There’s always so much good information out there. There are many people who are skilled at marketing, different branding and experts at their field. We want to bring them together to educate you all on things that are above Jamie and my pay grade. We’re hosts here. We’re not experts on everything. We’re going to bring in some people who can speak to these specific niche details of what you’re doing and help you do them better, and then also make it a fun, easy, enjoyable set up to connect with other people.
Jamie: We’ve already talked about a little bit of layout. We know we want to have some cocktail reception time where we can chat. We want to open up time to hang out together because there’s so much power. Probably as much power equally in those times as they would be listening to a speaker speak.
Heather: You guys talking to each other and having that time to get to know each other is the most powerful because we want to get tactical. We want to learn too, but it is a huge aspect of it. We’re going to leave room for that. I keep thinking about massage chairs and stuff like that, but who knows if we’ll be able to integrate that?
In-Person Networking: Networking and showing up consistently to make connections is going to help you level up way faster than almost anything else.
Jamie: I didn’t realize massage chairs were even on the agenda thought process, but I’m here for it.
Heather: When do you not want a massage chair? Massage chairs in networking, people will be relaxed and in such an open mind space.
Jamie: Here’s the problem. You and I would hoard those chairs.
Heather: Jamie and I will be in the massage chairs. You can come by and talk to us.
Jamie: Come network by standing next to the massage chair.
Heather: We’re going to try at least some pampering element. I can’t guarantee the massage chair. It’s an idea.
Jamie: Way to throw that out there, Heather, everything is going to fail in comparison to massage chairs.
Heather: We’ll come up with something good. It’s going to be an epic event. I’m not going to try to oversell you on it, but epic I’d say is probably going to be the minimum way to describe it.
Jamie: We are pumped and passionate about this. Selfishly, it’s going to be a radical tool for me because I’m going to learn a lot from you guys. It is a wedding planner intensive weekend. Date to be determined, but if it’s all ready to be set, then obviously it’ll be tossed into this show somewhere. We want to hang out with you. We want to learn from you and with you and we want to share with you. One of the things that we know as wedding planners is that we have our gifts and we have things that are not our gifts. We have things that fall within our job description and things that do not fall within our job description.
That’s why there’s a photographer. That’s why people don’t hire us to be a photographer for their wedding day because that is not our expertise. The same can be said with different areas of your business. When it comes to marketing, when it comes to contracts, when it comes to client interaction, you do not have to be the boss of all of them or the expert of all of them. You’re going to have to know some stuff. You’re an entrepreneur and you’re running your own business, you still need to learn some things, but you’re not expected to be an expert right when you start off.
Heather: We’re going to bring together some of those experts and people who can help show you guys the way and hopefully get your wedding business move into the level you want it to. Have a little fun too. We need a little more fun in our lives.
Jamie: I could use some more fun, a little less construction talk.
Heather: That’s the plan. If you are reading this and you’re like, “Heather and Jamie seem like so much fun.” Obviously, you’re going to have this great knowledge to bring together. I can’t imagine any of you are thinking that. If you’re thinking that and you’re like, “I’m curious about this event. I want to make sure I’m getting my foot in the door.” It is going to be a limited event. We can’t fit everybody and this is the first event we’re doing like this. We don’t want to be overly ambitious here and make it an enormous event. It’s going to be small, intimate and special. There’s a contact form on our website. Go there, check it out, message us, let us know and then that way we can get you on the list that when information’s ready, we can send it out to you.
Obviously, at this event, we’re going to have some focus. We’re going to be dialed into our businesses, weddings and building some epic stuff. It’s TheUnionPodcast.com. Go to the contact page, reach out to us and let us know if you want to hang with us. We would love to see you at this event and we’ll shoot you details as soon as they are firmed up. If you’re like, “You guys are crazy. I don’t want to hang out with you.” There are a lot of other networking opportunities out there too. Those are fine, you can go to those. We won’t be there to give our joyous commentary on all sorts of things. That’s unfortunate but maybe for you, that’s best. It’s okay. We still appreciate you being here.
Jamie: That’s fine. You don’t have to be there. We’re not better at all.
Heather: It’s not a big deal to us or anything.
Jamie: We have been planning this. We’re invested and this is important to us. We truly would love to hang out with you. It’s going to be epic.
Heather: I don’t even know if we should even talk about some of the people we’re bringing together. We don’t want to spoil the surprise. We’re going to have details soon and it will make you excited to come hang out. Sit out there and network. If you’re not coming to this thing, find something. Get yourself out there. Make some new friends. Make some new connections, get your business growing. Remember that even though the young kids these days only want to interact over digital means, people are the key here. You need to get out and meet people.
Jamie: Did you say the young kids?
Heather: It’s what we’re all thinking. At least, me. I’m including all of you in that. Even though that’s what the hip young kids do, we need to teach them that people are important and we need to get out there and meet each other face to face. Enjoy a couple of glasses of Chardonnay, chat it up, learn from each other and develop ways to grow our businesses and make awesome things happen. Get out there. Enjoy the magic of networking in real life, also online is good too. Do we set up a group online for people to connect with us?
Jamie: I don’t think we have.
Heather: What are we doing? We have an Instagram page, you can find us there and at least connect on that platform. We’ll probably be putting some group together over on Facebook. Watch out for that too. We’ll maybe add details for that on our website. This was another professional and excellent episode. I hope you enjoyed. Have a lovely day.
