Often times, it is perfectionism that leads to procrastination or indecision.  Selecting the perfect flower, the dream dress, and the ideal invitation can be extremely overwhelming if you are a perfectionist.  As wedding vendors, we know there is NO such things at “perfect” when it comes to these elements because each item is unique in its own way.  What we strive for is an excellent fit for the wedding design.  I like to take a step back and remind the client of the following:

• “If you love option A and B equally, then pick either of them.  Your guests are not going to know what’s missing.”
  Often a couple feels like their guests are going to know what they passed up.  This is impossible.  In this context, they are reminded that their guests are going to be blown away with their wedding design – regardless of the other options out there.
• “My advice is to _____________.”
  There are times when the client is veering down a road that they had not intended to go down.  This is where we become advisors to clients.  For example, with invitation design, sometimes a client loves many details and want to incorporate them all into the invitation.  (It starts to look like a mismatched hodge-podge.)  As their wedding vendor, I should educate them towards making good design choices.  Often times, they are looking for the opinion of an expert.
• “What is the most important part of your wedding?”
  This question often refocuses the client to think about the important piece of their wedding.  Often it’s family, fun, celebration, music, food.  After answering this question, you can remind the client that what seems like a critical decision during your meeting will have a very small (if any) impact on that most important part of the wedding.

This helps lessen the pressure that the bride and/or groom put on themselves and that others may be putting upon them.  This also helps them focus on what’s important: the commitment they have with one another.  Yes, the wedding is a fun event that should also be beautiful.  But, ultimately there are bigger and more important choices in life.  It’s necessary that we, as an industry, remind our clients Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.

Creative Commons License

Yesterday, we defined the indecisive client and discussed how in a sea of hundreds of choices they are sometimes paralyzed in their decision-making.  Today, we will talk about some selling techniques to better enable you to learn more about what the client wants.  And, how you can help educate them to make more confident choices.

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Shwartz recommends minimizing some of the choices available to help make a decision.  As vendors, we can help do this by paring down the choices available for our client.  For example, with invite design, clients sometimes LOVE twenty designs… but do they really?  I know that if they walk away with twenty designs in mind, they aren’t going to choose any of them.  It’s all about asking a questions to help them whittle down the choices from twenty to three.

If you sense the client is overwhelmed with all the choices, these are some helpful questions to help them focus and become centered.  They help minimize the number of choices so that they can focus on less.

• SITUATION Questions
  These are background questions you can ask to determine the client’s situation:

  - When and where is your wedding?
  - What is the feel of your wedding?
  - What sort of experience do you want your guests to have?
  - What is it about your wedding location that made you love it?

• PRIORITIZATION Questions
  Questions such as these will help you determine what is most important to your client and will help them determine their priorities:

  - Which is the dominant color of your wedding? (if they have many colors, and seem unable to focus on one)
  - What is more important: the casual nature and fun-loving elements of your wedding or the traditional aspects you want to incorporate? (if they are having difficulty deciding between a casual style versus a formal style)
  - You like the style of this one and this one, but it is not what you initially had planned… do you want to take this in a new direction?  (if they came in with one vision and are distracted by a new vision)

As wedding vendors, we service our clients as educators.  We teach our clients about weddings and expose them to options for the design of their event.  It is up to them to make a decision that is the best match.  Asking the right questions of them, enables us to expose them to the best product or service.  Use your gut and work into a conversation to help them narrow down to a limited number of 3 choices with with to work.

Tomorrow, we’ll be tying all of this together to help your client finalize their decision.

Creative Commons License

With so much information available for engaged couples, it’s no wonder that they sometimes feel overwhelmed and have trouble making decisions to plan for their wedding. This week we’ll be working on strategies to work with the indecisive client. We’ll be discussing:

• the indecisive client
• good questions to ask the client
• assisting and educating the client

“So much to choose from”

These days we have hundreds of choices on everything. We can walk into a mega media store and choose from gazillions of books, CDs, dvds. We don’t even have to leave the house. All we have to do is turn on the computer and we have the world of choice at our fingertips. Imagine what it’s like to get married these days! Brides and grooms can go to hundreds of wedding website, thousands of blogs, millions of online stores. And, this is just on the computer. No wonder they feel overwhelmed and indecisive!

In the Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz discusses how so many options make it difficult for people to choose:

A recent series of studies, titled “When Choice is Demotivating” was set in a gourmet food store in an upscale community.  In one condition of the study, 6 varieties of jam were available for tasting.  In another, 24 varieties were available.  In either case, the entire set of 24 varieties was available for purchase.  The large array of jams attracted more people to the table than the small array, though  in both cases people tasted about the same number of jams on average.  When it came to buying, however, a huge difference became evident.  Thirty percent of the people exposed to the small array of jams actually bought a jar; only three percent of those exposed to the large array of jams did so.

This is what engaged couples face every day that they are making decisions for their wedding.  They are choosing between hundreds of vendors, hundreds of flowers, thousands of invites, millions of songs, hundreds of dresses and so on.  Often the excess of choice is preventing them from deciding.  How can we help them get through the sea of choice and feel confident in their decision?

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about ways we can ask the right questions so that they can pare down their options.