How a wedding planner makes an outrageous offer - and wins business!

[Dien Rice]

Sarah is a wedding planner in Kentucky who offers her wedding planning services to brides and grooms... But when she does so, she does it with an outrageous offer...

She works for them for FREE !

How does she do that, and still survive?

She has a very interesting business model.

She refers the bride and groom to various vendors - photographers, florists, venues, and so on...

The bride and groom pick which vendors they want to use. Then...

...Sarah gets paid by the vendors!

It's a great model... I imagine she must get a lot of business. How can her competitors beat "free" ?!

Here's more information on how her outrageous offer works...

Wedding planner marries clients and vendor-based businesses
http://bizlex.com/2015/09/wedding-pl...ed-businesses/

Best wishes,

Dien

[MMacGillivray]

That's a very interesting business model, Dien. I know of one wedding planner in Scotland (and there are probably more) who has pulled out of the "planning" bit because of difficulties in getting paid.

Margaret

Great article!

I don't know much about the wedding business, but evidently getting a commission from everyone from the venue, to caterer, to dress maker, etc. makes staying in business possible... if they purchase from her network.

Like Joe Karbo (and others I guess) have said, she "zigged" when the other wedding planners "zagged" by charging!

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by MMacGillivray

That's a very interesting business model, Dien. I know of one wedding planner in Scotland (and there are probably more) who has pulled out of the "planning" bit because of difficulties in getting paid.

Hi Margaret,

I imagine part of the difficulty is that people only have one wedding (at least that's the plan!)... So they don't expect to have a "long term relationship" with a wedding planner.

On the other hand, the vendors would hope to have a "long term relationship" with the wedding planner, because presumably, they want her (or him) to send more business their way!

My guess is, because of this, the vendors are actually more likely to pay! If they don't pay, the vendors obviously will not be recommended by the wedding planner in future...!

Thanks for sharing that, Margaret...

Best wishes,

Dien

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Chuck

Great article!

I don't know much about the wedding business, but evidently getting a commission from everyone from the venue, to caterer, to dress maker, etc. makes staying in business possible... if they purchase from her network.

Like Joe Karbo (and others I guess) have said, she "zigged" when the other wedding planners "zagged" by charging!

Hi Chuck,

Glad you liked it!

Yes, when I originally read the article, I thought... This sounds like a very clever way to do it!

Best wishes,

Dien