PROTECTING YOUR WEDDING BUSINESS in 2021 [CLUBHOUSE REPLAY] w/ Kunbi Odubogun of Legally Set
![PROTECTING YOUR WEDDING BUSINESS in 2021 [CLUBHOUSE REPLAY] w/ Kunbi Odubogun of Legally Set PROTECTING YOUR WEDDING BUSINESS in 2021 [CLUBHOUSE REPLAY] w/ Kunbi Odubogun of Legally Set](/pic/protecting_your_wedding_business_in_2021_clubhouse_replay_w-_kunbi_odubogun_of_legally_set/OEU1WHNqR2QxSGc_.jpeg)
hi everybody hi everybody i'm so excited to be live with y'all today i'm so excited um i know this is a bit of a surprise but i've decided that i want to use this facebook group as my replay um area alright so welcome to my replay crew for everything that i'll be doing on clubhouse so for many of you guys already know that i'll be going live in clubhouse today at one o'clock i will be going live with Kunbi Odibogun who is the owner of legally set she's an attorney um specializing in creative um you know work for creative entrepreneurs and today we're going live together and we will be talking about all things relating to you know preparing and protecting our wedding businesses for 2021 obviously we are still in a pandemic there's still a lot of considerations to keep in mind right so that's what we're going to be talking about today on clubhouse now clubhouse of course is an audio only club but here because you're part of my inner circle because you're in the facebook group you get to see a little bit of visuals right so i will be on clubhouse you'll get to listen in on the conversation if you do want to ask a question you will have to join the clubhouse because this is a clubhouse conversation but this is just you know your opportunity to get the replay um you know in case you couldn't join live and also in case you want to see something visual and not just audio all right so the reason i decided to go with this topic for today you know preparing and protecting your wedding business in 2021 it's because i mean it's at the top of all of our minds right now right like there's just so much going on right now with um there's just so much going on right now frankly with everything but especially with kovid kovit is still running rampant um many people are still trying to figure out like do i want to make you know do i want to make microweddings like the new norm for my business etc there's just so much to consider when it comes to you know when it comes to this when it comes to us thinking about 2021 how are we going to prepare for 2021 continue to make sales how are we going to manage reschedulings and all of that so that's what we're talking about today live in clubhouse all right we're talking about preparing and protecting your wedding business for 2021 so stay tuned i'm about to hit start to start the room and we're going live we're about to go live i'm so thrilled about this so so thrilled to be doing this um going with my dual technology today i'm excited about it all right hey Kunbi hi how are you how are you i'm like i'm hoping clubhouse doesn't just ruin my entire business i'm like always on here you you are always on here excuse me i'm not even gonna be like oh no girl i know you you're not always no you are always on here when i wake up early in the morning and i'm like let me see who's on i'm like okay i don't know what's happening i feel like my phone yeah like oh god like we're just always talking yeah but yes hey how are you i am well i'm so excited about this so excited to be hosting my very first room um i've really enjoyed being on clubhouse like i've really enjoyed being on clubhouse and i've enjoyed um learning from other people um occasionally stepping up to ask questions or maybe to add something like this is such a fun platform um believe it or not i actually went out and bought an ipad so i can get on clubhouse because i'm team to android but yeah there's some like i wish you hadn't shared that like it's really embarrassing what is your problem like you said that you had people find an i but like why are you still team android listen i'm an engineer at heart and most of us who are most of us who are geeks like we we're you know we're sold out to the droid life so well that's why you're talking to an ipad right now dear because i don't know like like that thing sure whatevs whatevs but yes welcome everybody to the room i'm gonna go ahead and um i'm gonna go ahead and do a quick intro so obviously we are one day we are two days away from the new year two days away from 2021 so i thought it was more than time for us to hop in and talk about preparing our wedding businesses for 2021 and also protecting our wedding businesses right i think that many of us early on in the pandemic didn't think we would be where we are right now in the pandemic so if you haven't already put you know the effort in to protect or prepare your business for 2021 now's the time to do it for real lots of people are still getting engaged over the holidays like booking season is still about to be raging so we want to we want to go in um armed so that's why we decided to have this room i'm so so so excited our goal is to keep this room to 90 minutes so cumbia and i have a few questions we're going to go through to start and then we're going to open up for q a so our goal is to keep it to 90 minutes so if you have any friends who are in the wedding business please ping them into the room have them come on in because we're not going to be here all day and we have a whole lot to share so please ping your friends in the into the room and ask them to come on in but while you're doing that i'll go ahead and introduce myself and kumbi i will ask you to introduce yourself as well so my name is Feyisola it's nigerian so yes it is a different name uh Feyisola i'm nigerian i am a wedding planner and i own a company called statuesque events we're based in the dc metro area but we service weddings all along the east coast and other destinations as well we love planning cross-cultural and multicultural events uh we love celebrating people's culture we love working with our black brides and grooms like that's what we take a lot of pride in just displaying that that black love and cross-cultural love that's something we love to do i am also a business coach and i run an accelerator program for wedding planners called planners who profit um you can learn all about it um by following me you know checking out the link in my bio et cetera and i love coaching wedding planners who are experienced who have already planned some weddings but are looking to get to that next level of your business right you want to profit right exactly what it's called planners who profit you want to get to a place where you're profiting where you're on getting into a higher level of the market and that's the sweet spot over the years that i have found of who i enjoy coaching and who i can help get massive results so that's what i do and that's what i focus on and before i pass it over to coombie i'll say i have worked with her before she helped me with my legal documentation for my um accelerator program so she's great at what she does which is why we're hosting a room together and um yeah with that i'll turn it over to kumbi so could you please introduce yourself let us know who you are where you're from what you do besides sitting on clubhouse you know exactly sitting in here i am kumbi and i live here i'm joking but um i'm a business attorney based in new york i am i've been practicing for over 10 years now and i am um my practice mainly focuses on creative entrepreneurs and event pros like all of you all because for the last actually eight years i have also been running an events publication called perfect it used to be called out perfect and so that is um that is how my life has balanced into this very unique industry that i find myself in now i am primarily the founder of legally sets which is a contract template shop that gives you you know ready-made digital download contracts for your creative business so if you're an entrepreneur an event pro influencer um an online business owner of any form then there's a template there for you and i'm really excited to do this like facial i said we have worked together and um even pros have my heart completely so i'm just always excited to talk about this so looking forward to it awesome awesome awesome yes well thanks so much guys for joining um yeah i mean like i said earlier the reason that i'm passionate about doing this at this point is that right now you know it's it's time for us to prepare and protect ourselves from 2021 we've been in a pandemic now for nine months um it that you know we've we've been shocked and re-shocked at the way that things have been handled and the way where we are right now but i you know based off of what we've learned um you know we definitely want to make sure we're preparing ourselves and moving forward and arming ourselves with the things that we need so i guess kombi i guess what i i'll start with you so as part of our teaching um again we're going to be sharing a few things then we're going to bring people up for q a so could be my first question for you is what clauses should every wedding business have in 2021 um if you want to elaborate more on maybe what kinds of contract terms i'm not sure if i'm using the right words but what clauses what kinds of contracts or amendments etc should every business every wedding business have in 2021 given the things that have been going on and maybe even touch on some of the things we should have always had okay so very great question i think moving forward everything that you're doing now is about protecting your your business and protecting your bag in general for lack of a better word so for for me and the first thing that i always just advise my clients and first thing i look for in an agreement anyway is the payment clause compensation looking as to how your compensation is laid out like what is what what is the payment schedule and is the money refundable in any form is there a non-refundable aspect of any payments is there um what kind of payment is do you win and what happens if that payment is not made because i think even before we even get into the more like you know noteworthy clauses that clause needs to be clear from the beginning you shouldn't be going in anywhere where you find that you are you're having to refund more than you have worked for or like or refund in some cases like i think some of my clients and i know one or two are in here or refund in any situation anyway so um for me that's the first thing that i look for in an agreement and i think um as event eventbros and as people who um whose um livelihood not only depends on the situation like the condition of the country the state of the country in some form or the other it's really important that you you have a well outlined payment section that dictates how payments will be made and whether or not any amount of money is going to be refundable the next thing for me and of course the one that i'm sure everybody has like thought about over the last year is the postponement clause this is the most imp is probably going to end up being the most important clause inside your agreement since a lot of people are postponing instead of cancelling or postponing postponing then cancelling so it's really really important that your postponement course establishes what happens in the event that a client would like to postpone for one reason or for any reason given that we are in an active like pandemic we're in an active situation where there is uncertainty there's no excuse anymore that you're saying that this is a surprise so there's no reason why you should be signing in new clients on an old contract that does not dictate what happens if the client has to postpone so for me that that clause is is one if you haven't yet it's either you go and get an attorney to review it or make sure you have an attorney drafted postponement clause because your postponement clause could literally be the difference between you being in business this year or you've been out of business by the end of 2021 and the postponement clause needs to establish okay so what happens within which window can i actually postpone this event like you've heard of clients coming maybe they've been just been waiting to see how how the pandemic is like you know going and how the pandemic is playing out and then you get a text or something 20 days before an event well at 20 days before an event i would hope that the expectation is that there are no refunds and that if there is a postponement a lot of things might have permanently already been set in place that will will lead to extra payments being made for a future date i would also hope that you have something in there that states that both parties have to find a mutually agreeable date before they can move forward with a new date because somebody's not just going to tell you that they picked peak period like august 20th 2022 or something and expect that you are available knowing fully well that not only are you booking 2021 clients you're booking 2022 clients so not only are you moving your old clients but you're also booking new ones so each date is a premium and it has to be clear whether or not you are charging a premium for those dates a b or whether or not there will be a postponement fee these kinds of things and i had i spoke with a couple of coaches yesterday and the same thing i'm going to say to them is the same thing i'll say here the more detailed and the more direct your contract is about how and how something is handled the easier it is for you to contest it and defend it when the time comes especially as event right right so yes because i mean obviously facial like you've seen this as well like as an event planner yourself you will find that as event pros because you're dealing with something so exciting in someone's life sometimes it's very easy for you to remove the fact that it's a business and it still has to be run like a business so having this information there when you're dealing with something so delicate sometimes is really important so you don't have to start going back and forth and being the mean person or the grinch when it's time to talk and when it's time to talk particulars about such a thing yeah yeah i guess yeah i mean i think that that is you know that's essential i know that you have um or at one point anyway at one point i'm not sure if it's still free but there was a rescheduling um oh yeah it's still free yeah it's still free i actually i have a free version and obviously i also do have a paid version that's very very detailed but the free version is amazing and you can actually just grab it if you type in freeamendment.com on um in your browser it's freeamendment.com like free amendment you can get it for free and that's a very simple straight to the point rescheduling agreement that you can use to have that in place because that's actually a very good point and a good segue another thing about your postponements yes you are postponing based on the terms in your agreement but you should have that amendment in place to amend to the new date because these things a lot of things i have seen over the last 10 months of this you know nightmare is that i've seen people making these changes and doing all of these things by the most random through the most random avenues like text or word of mouth or anything like that you have to remember that we're literally in a rolling situation and you do not want to leave anything down to he said she said and also for your own peace of mind document everything and that's the reason why you need a rescheduling amendment because then you have it in clear terms what the deal what the details and changes to the original agreement are if you're not having that if if you're not having the wedding on that date anymore establish when this new contract has been amendment has been amended to and also establish how much if any changes are going to be made to the original terms of that agreement for instance are you going to be charging a rescheduling fee for planners who have already done the work and done everything are you going to be charging something to basically accommodate for the time and extra effort you'll be doing for florists who have already created the products and maybe it might end up being lost goods are you charging for the additional work that may be done in the next year also if the couple is scaling down in some form or the other maybe you're scaling down from like a 300 person wedding to a 100 person wedding what what does that mean for the changes in fees are you going to have to accommodate for new styling a new design or something establish those terms in your rescheduling amendment so nobody says he says she says and it's very clear what the expectations are yeah yeah no i mean i think i think that is obviously it's it's spot on um coming from you but i mean i think that i mean that's a big one right because with a lot of clients you know you have to lay out what rescheduling means for certain clients and i mean honestly i have some clients who are pretty amazing even though their their weddings got rescheduled they didn't like expect like that we're gonna start from scratch redo the whole design plan and just kind of like you know kind of be going back and forth so we kind of had those agreements but for me i agree with you like just in general i tell my clients all the time and even when i'm you know coaching other people if it's not written down it's not real so a lot of times and i and written down like in an email or in like for me the only thing i really care about is like what's in email timelines and if it's something related to a contract like what's in the contract if it's not any of those things then it's not real text messages and send when people start sending screenshots of text messages and stuff like that where he said she said it's just like for me i'm just like there's no way to prove this and we're gonna waste more time trying to figure out who said what six months ago um than than having it written down i know that a lot of times with us we we try to be uh as as creatives we're always trying to be so personal like okay just text me or just what's at me but then when things get confused it's it's like you're spending triple the energy just trying to figure out what was agreed upon in the first place and it's just not worth it like that's not that's not high value work for us as event professionals so it's really like it's really important for us to really like put the effort into just being organized being organized about what we're asking for being organized about what we offer what people's options are up front and really thinking things through and i think another thing that comes with that you know just from uh you know obviously everything you said is right but i'm just thinking more from like you know putting it into practice is not feeling the need to give an instant response to everything so someone asks you a question because i think that this is i mean i don't give an instant response pretty much to anybody and i know it sounds crazy but i always give a complete response and i think that that's something that makes that causes people to generally respect me because yes i may not give you a response in three minutes but when i give you a response i'm gonna say okay this is what we're gonna do this is how we're gonna get there a b and c right so i think that for us we have to take the time obviously couldn't be through a whole lot of questions right like what happens how far in advance can you reschedule to this and that those things take a little bit of time to think through and to connect to so you have to think like that it's the most important thing we have to do as business owners we have to think so that we can actually guide people and not just like let things happen to us and then complain and vent in facebook groups after the fact like we have to be able to think about what we want and not just what we want what we think is fair and not what's going to be the best for the client and like take that time to think right um and and and really just jot down this is what i think i want and then of course consult with a lawyer and say hey this is what i'm thinking how do i put this in into the legal terms or you know get you know get a template or you know that that matches up with what you're looking for so sorry i wasn't trying to cut you off i was just trying to oh no 100 that's i was just i was just completely agreeing i think that that's strategy for anybody even across any industry like you have to remember that with what you're doing there's so many things and so many little pieces in place especially in this period where you're already in postponement mode and like like for lack of a better word chaos so there's a lot of things that come into play and a lot of decisions that you might have even forgotten in your head so trying not to say yes or no right away is the best way to go because there's one thing we say in law all the time there's something like an informed response like basically an informed response means in our case that means you've consulted your lawyer so you know nobody's doing rubbish for you but basically more than anything else an informed response means you have all the facts and you have all like you have everything in place before you respond so taking the beats to at least look make sure that you make sure you're not double booking make sure that you're not emotionally responding most importantly because clients will do that to you and then you're saying oh yeah sure we can move it to august 22nd but guess what august 22nd might be the day that you were waiting for another person to respond for a different for a different event so taking a step back and and giving like facial i said what was it i loved the complete response is ideal and very important moving forward in 2021 yeah it's it's for me i like the complete response over the instant response because the funny thing is that it'll save you time you know when you respond to someone and say hey these are your options you can go with a b or c it's written out and then give them time to think about it and i also don't need an instant response from you you can think about it for two three days talk to your your husband um pray about it whatever you need to do so that when you come back to me we're on the same page and we're not just ping-ponging for weeks and weeks about what you want to do right so that's that's just my approach everything um and i think that that's that's really important because i mean i'm not sure we're going to bring more people up to the face to ask questions in a second but i'm sure like as you were going down the list of oh what happens in this case or that kids i'm sure some people are like what like this is a lot and it's like yeah it is it is you know which is why you need to take some time to sit down and think how how am i going to respond in these situations what are some scenarios that could come up and what do i want right so um yeah that's that's pretty much what what i what i wanted to add there okay i do have another question for you at what point should i customize a contract versus use a template right so is there is there um is it okay if i customize my own temp you know contract from your temperate library at what point should i hire a lawyer to create a custom contract or to customize one for me like what would you recommend especially you know given everything happening in 2020 well i think that obviously i'm going to say it first now just because it's always a great idea to consult with an attorney obviously because everybody's needs are different right obviously with legal templates like the ones that i have they're they're created with with the industry professional as a whole like this facet of the industry professional and created specifically for them with their needs in place like each each contract is created with and actually supervised by somebody in that industry specifically so that everything is kind of done but the whole idea with the template is like it's a general take on what you what on the on what we believe you need to be legally set if you have custom needs you can go through it and that's the whole idea so you purchase the template and they look through it and see if there's anything that you feel like could protect you even further especially when you speak with your attorney and another thing is i find that with event pros you are your biggest experience because your your needs evolve but and my favorite phrase to say is is when your needs evolve as the clients show their real self so every time you have a client relation like you have a client incident you realize that you know what this is another i call it my no-no list which is a whole like a whole discussion about the [ __ ] that you will not tolerate when you contract with a client like so for instance i think maybe the first or second time you find yourself cleaning up when you're not supposed to be cleaning up or holding somebody's head when they're throwing up in the bathroom you realize that you know what this is not my job and then all of a sudden you're adding these limitations or your no-no's into your contract so these are the things that of course create a custom situation or if you find yourself especially when you're dealing with high net worth clients and you find like your payment schedule needs to be tweaked a little bit or you need to have more like more strict boundaries in your in your situation then i always think that as as you evolve and as you grow as a professional you you should seek the assistance of an attorney at least even just showing them to sign off on the on your new agreement because your needs will always be custom but like i said before we have created this this with event pros in mind like literally event professionals like what is it that you're going through and you know there's been a lot over the last year so those have been put in there so anybody that has purchased i know at least two people that have purchased the contract in this group anybody that has purchased the contract will find that okay wow they even thought about this but of course i can never ever not tell you to not consult their attorney because oh yeah yeah okay okay that sounds good that sounds awesome that's that's definitely excellent advice um i know for myself like i said i i work with coombi and i i did ask for a custom um custom contract so we went with the hybrid we you know went with it yes we did because yeah the template and then and then um customizing it but um yeah i think it really just comes down to you know your comfort wanting to wanting to protect yourself um as opposed to just downloading something from it you know one of these free contracts on the internet but you definitely want something specific to you so that you you actually understand it frankly um you can't really enforce it if you don't even understand it a lot of people have contracts that they don't even know what it says so you want to you have to understand it and know what it says to enforce it um okay i think that's even that's you literally just answered the question for me because i think it's also important there's no excuse anymore for you to not know and understand the terms of your agreement you see you would find that a lot of people had problems with their contract and had the primary reason for contract issues during this time was the fact that you yourself didn't even know what you had in your contract so half of the time i was reviewing contracts that were literally like close to clause they were fighting with each other yeah so like you would have contracts conflicting with each other inside there because people have copy paste their contract from the internet with the idea that okay you know what well you know what this person had this in their contract i'm just going to copy paste it here but the truth is each contract like i always say it's literally an extension of you and your business it's literally about you and your product your it's an extension and a living extension of your business so anything that you change or anything that you just touch on from somebody else sometimes isn't going to work with actually what your business is about and it's very dangerous and it's the reason why it's really important that you have a cohesive agreement and which is the reason why what facial did was great with me like when she came in for custom custom help outside of the contract is because she wanted something that was 360 her like completely her and so it's really important that you have that in mind as well like so at least reading your contract and digesting it and knowing that okay this clause works for me this clause works for me why is this clause here maybe find out otherwise then you're just going in blindly and then can't even have like a clear conversation with your client about the terms and guess what one thing that you can expect in 2021 is client pushback period they're going to be more they're going to be much more critical about where they're putting their money and they're going to be much more credible about terms because they want to make sure that they have an out as well because of the pandemic because of what happened in 2020 because it was so shocking and because there were so many postponements people are going to want to negotiate their contracts further so you have to be able to stand in your contract and be able to defend the terms of your agreement or at least explain it to them so that both of you are on the same page right yeah i think that's excellent i think that's excellent like amazing all right so i'm gonna reset super fast i'm gonna reset the room um so we are talking about preparing and protecting your wedding business for 2021 um so we're talking about the legal side and also preparing for 2021 right like in addition to protecting ourselves we also want to continue making sales let's be frank right we want to be able to get the sale you know um push our you know push our services and and all of that so i just i just want to encourage you guys please ping your friends all your industry friends um anyone who's in the wedding events industry or or creative even outside of it a lot of us could use it so um please ping your friends into the room we just want to make sure that everybody gets a chance to to chat with us my name is faisha i'm a wedding planner i own a company called statuesque events based in the dc metro area and i'm also a coach i i run an accelerator program for wedding planners called planners who profit and it's for experienced wedding planners who are looking to um yeah profit and increase their profit and move into a higher market i'm also joined by kumbi who is a as you can already hear an awesome attorney with a heart for creative professionals and especially wedding professionals she has an entire contract shop of all kinds of clauses and contracts that you can use in your business one of them that she mentioned is free which is the rescheduling clause so please make sure that you know you follow us both check out the link in her bio to access the to access the contract shop and the link in mind to learn more about our accelerated program and i also have a free um challenge coming up in 10 days so if you want to learn more about that make sure you hit the link in my bio sign up for that and i will be chatting more in 10 days right that's a challenge to start off the year right now i wanted to um switch a little bit um into preparing for 2021 but i do know that we had one person raise their hand um if you don't mind just wait just one second i just wanted to answer one quick question before we hop into the q a formally um but yeah one question that i get a lot you know just from those who come to me who are interested in coaching etc is do i have to sell only micro wedding packages or do i have to sell only discounted packages now that we're in the pandemic and is it possible to sell regular price packages is it possible to to raise my rates etc during the pandemic um and i just want to share my perspective on that i think absolutely yeah yes um i think absolutely yes but just keeping in mind that people like congress that people are very a little bit more critical they're they they want to know where their money is going etc so yes i know that a lot of times we talk about charging our worth and raising our rates but you also have to present yourself a certain way you've got to be able to answer questions um for me i i can speak for myself and say that i've gotten clients because of the pandemic i you know earlier in the year spoke to a couple of clients you know on sales calls and they're like oh we really love your work but you know the typical it's too expensive you know i'll do it myself which was cool i don't argue with people about that um because yeah i get a lot of inquiries so i'm always just trying to find my clients but i've had a lot of people kind of circle back as the pandemic continued to rage on and say you know what i can't navigate this by myself like i actually need someone to help me to navigate through this um you know and i think that the interesting thing is that the pandemic is actually helping people to see the value of of quality wedding vendors um so if you when you can present yourself when you can articulate your value and how you're going to help people um not only just to have a pretty wedding but also help them through logistics through changes through chaos and really inspire confidence which is literally it's literally all in your ability to to notice patterns um in your business and as your servicing clients and also your ability to communicate it right so that's why i have a whole accelerator program it's all about helping people to communicate their unique value their unique positioning so that a client can understand because the thing is that we for the most part in the wedding industry we're serving clients who've never done it before so they you literally have to be able to speak in terms that they understand and i find that a lot of times we don't know how to do that as wedding professionals we just say oh yeah we'll help you through everything but what is everything right like what is what is the everything that they need help with is it just finding vendors can't they just go on your instagram and pull the vendors that you tagged in your last post and just use those same people like what what is it like you know and i think that the truth is that yes you can raise your rates you can still sell your regular price packages i mean i've sold multiple just you know domestic destination wedding planning packages during the pandemic you know and they're people who sought me out for my specific um niche which is cross-cultural weddings so it's very doable i don't want i think there are a lot of people who are preaching doom and gloom of like oh my gosh like all people are doing is rescheduling and all people are doing is canceling and having microwaves but that's not everyone because again the the laws are different state by state is the you know size of weddings i'm sure that by the time summer comes some some states will be back to like weddings of 200 250 et cetera um so i i do think that it's all about your positioning and your ability to communicate your value in what you do um and answer questions and frankly to address the elephant in the room when you're on sales goals that's my that would be like my biggest gem when it comes to selling right don't just talk to a client as if we're not in a pandemic while you're in the sales call with them or while you know etc like let them ask questions some people are for whatever reason are nervous about asking questions but let them ask questions and say hey how are you handling rescheduling like what happens if i have to reschedule you know and that goes back to knowing what's in your class like so if it's in your mind you already know what you put in your contract about your rescheduling agreements you can say hey yeah i allow clients to reschedule up to a year in advance right for so if you book me for august you can reschedule up until the following august um for a 500 fee at no additional fee or maybe a saturday's at an additional fee but weekdays are less or whatever the case is whatever your um whatever your terms are you can explain it so people don't feel like they're signing and then are going to get hit with random charges or surprises later right just being able to explain things in layman's terms because one thing i did mention yesterday when i was in i was in kundi's room we were talking to coaches but the sad thing is that a lot of people don't really read their contracts um and as we mentioned today including those who are sending the contracts but so even it's even worse on the client side so sometimes like you you know your ability to just explain it off the top of your head it helps people to say like this person is a true professional like she has processes she knows exactly what's going to happen in this case or that case like i've had this conversation with so many people and people always leave and say wow i i feel relieved because i understand what's going to happen in every case whether i can have this 150 person wedding whether it has to be 50 or whether i elope like i understand the options at every single stage i understand the decision points and all of that and i leave relieved and it's amazing talking to people about having to reschedule their wedding and the unknown in the future and causing people to leave that conversation leaving relieved and it all comes from your ability to just be clear on what what you are going to do how that's going to help them and at what point you're going to you know for those who are my actual clients what point we're going to actually make the decision right of whether or not you're going to reschedule that inspires confidence and i know for myself i consider myself to be someone like not only do i i charge my you know charge i would consider high ticket for my services i also pay people um high ticket for things because i don't like i don't like a whole lot of back and forth i don't want to be anybody's like anybody's experiment like i like things to just be done well so for me i'm looking for the same thing when i'm speaking to people and i'm sure all of you guys can if you really think about it for anyone who's like a homeowner or anyone who um maybe you are looking for a home you're working with a realtor or maybe even like when it comes to something even like your hair you know imagine when you're when you're speaking to someone and you're looking to hire them for something you've never done before or something that you've never worked with them about you're looking to see like does this person know what they're doing or do they just are they just kind of saying fluff to get my attention and i think that your ability to to just communicate and give that value and let people know like hey i know what i'm doing i have clear terms i have clear you know processes that will help you decision points you don't have to we don't need to like be on a call every single day for five hours to determine whether or not we're going to reschedule this is the point where we're going to do it and all of that helps to inspire that confidence and it helps to make the sale i mean i have you know like i said i've booked i've and i've also raised my rates this year and continued to book right um originally rates largely because i don't know how many more weddings i even want to do next year but i was just but people have continued to book and it's been great and they've enjoyed the service because they because of that clarity people want you to leave them right so i think that and it's now more than ever they want you to lead them through everything that's going on right now and i think that that's actually elevating the value of a of us as service professionals right now i don't know that many people who are looking for month of coordinators or wedding management in this particular situation that we're in right now right most people are like i need a planner because there's too many changes and i'm gonna need to make decisions um in advance about my my event or my wedding so for me you know for myself i've i've raised my rates booked more clients for those that i've coached they've raised their rates they've booked more clients because people are still like people are still getting married they're never going to stop getting married um and especially now with the vaccine and everything what people are really planning for you know for that grand event and i think that's something i just think that's an important thing to always keep in mind i think that we do need to protect ourselves and i know that in a lot of the event professional rooms we talk a lot about canceling events and pivoting into other fields which is you know pivoting into other fields is great it's something that you if you have a passion and something else it's something that you should do as well but don't just give up on weddings because you know 2021 is gonna be a big year and once you know covet is really under control it's going like everything's just gonna explode and it's just it's just gonna become a matter of whether or not your business is ready so that would just be my two cents on preparing yourself like really like this is the time to really do that inner work of what is the value that i bring beyond just oh yeah i have a good network of vendors like what and and being able to actually communicate that right um as a wedding professional so that was just one thing i wanted to share um i want to remind everybody if you do have a question please hit the raise hand button i know some people might be new if you have something to to ask or if you have something you'd like to share please hit the raise hand button about preparing or protecting your wedding business for 2021 and while people are doing that i do have one other question oh hey nicole she's back hi nicole can you go ahead and unmute and you can ask your question sorry guys i had a call quickly um so i think it's going to be yes but i want to ask anyways i have a lot of my clients who are in a situation where for instance i started working with them in 2018 and now they postponed all the way to 2021 or 2022. so my question is because of the pricing change and difference do you suggest we put that into our main contract as well as an amendment what are you suggesting regarding people changing pricing just because of postponements okay so that's a great question and i think that that goes back to what i was saying about like you know not having you should you shouldn't really even be using the same contracts beyond like 2020 and sending out new ones is always a great idea obviously some clients might say oh we already signed one and then you send an addendum with that listed in there like any further date change will be subject to um updated rates for instance or be subject to to um to um contractors updated rates or you could charge a flat fee for it in my like in general what i find with my clients is that they're more comfortable even just having it in their original contract stating that postponements are limited to 12 months and anything beyond the 12 months range would be subject to an x fee or updated contractor rates for that for that year and also even stating that a further date change beyond that an additional date change after the initial date change would either be subject to an updated agreement or will be subjected to an updated amendment amendment and updated fees because um i think that's one part that we're all missing so that you don't find yourself having to do addendum open addendum but addendum especially when it comes to increased rates stating in your contract from the beginning that they will be subject to contractors updated rates is always a great idea perfect thank you so much okay yeah it's perfect thank you yeah and get that money girl there's no reason why you should be working with 2018 rates we're in 2020 and you you deserve a premium preach awesome awesome thanks thanks for sharing that also nicole um she left but um also if anyone else has a question please raise your hand we'd like to bring you up on stage and also if you have anything to add you know it's an open space you can you know come on up and and share um oh i even i had a question you have a question for each other go ahead no you you know i have a list of questions so but go ahead what you were going to do because i was going to mention um because you know we were talking about clauses originally so one thing i hadn't even i didn't finish the clause um list because beyond the postponement to your cancellation also it has to be very clear it has to be super clear as to how you are handling a cancellation because like i said some people will postpone postpone and then cancel or some people will cancel from the beginning based on something or the other i'll decide like you know what it's not worth it anymore to keep postponing or it's not worth it anymore for me to have to wait till 2021 so i'm going to go ahead and cancel and in that case for me it's um it's really it has to be your cancellation clause could literally dictate whether or not you're going to get money back how you need to be notified if you are going to be returning any money or if everything is considered work performed based on where at the point of which they are canceling and for the reason they are cancelling and then letting them know that they will um they would not be receiving any amount back or they will be receiving a pro-rated amount back is really important so that you don't find yourself i have seen clients who like the client will cancel like let's say 30 days out or like maybe even less than 30 days out and then we'll still be trying to ask um ask for a full refund no there's no reason why your contract should be quiet about that language because that is something that you don't want to even have to start defending in court you shouldn't have to even go that extra step like like you were talking about facial that systems are so important part of the reason why your contract is there is to make your life super easy so it should be clear whether or not a cancellation is possible obviously it is if they decide they don't want to have the wedding anymore here is how much you'll be getting back or here is here is a nice flower because you're not getting anything back so either way it needs to be documented and also if they are cancelling and and for any reason at all honestly for for any reason like no there shouldn't be any reason why you shouldn't even send them a cancellation agreement to to tie up that loose end if the contract doesn't complete naturally like by the performance of the event for any reason at all you should have a termination agreement in place a cancellation agreement that establishes that this this relationship has now ended this is how we're ending we're parting ways blah blah blah there will be no disparagement ever the terms of this termination is conf confidential and then you call it a day those things are really important now especially because clients will switch up on you nobody's beyond that people will switch up on you differently and you find out that all of a sudden they're like oh yeah you cancelled but i yes i canceled the wedding but where's my money back and you're like okay so but we decided we weren't getting any money back and this is why determination agreement is also important right yeah no i think that's that's yeah i love it i love it i love it i love it um crystal what is your question for us um so say your name where you live all that good stuff and your name um yeah all right we'll wait for her to come back um all right so like i said i've got a whole list of questions uh let me reset the room really quickly so we're talking about preparing and protecting your wedding business for 2021 so what that means is how do we you know prepare to continue to run our businesses make sales make money in 2021 and how do we protect ourselves protect our money our um and our reputations et cetera in 2021 so my name is facial i'm a wedding planner owner of statuesque events i'm also a coach and i run an accelerator program for experienced wedding planners call planners who profit and i'm joined by kumbi who is an attorney um specific and she does specialize in creative entrepreneurship um has amazing templates for wedding and event professionals in her contract shop called legally set um she is also the mastermind behind perfect so for the publication perfect as well um all right so kumbi i have a question i think this is something we could probably both um maybe just have a discussion on so one of my it's something that's come up a few times so one of my clients were scheduled multiple times and i'm getting frustrated um and i want to charge more so how do i protect myself against endless rescheduling in the future i mean i know that you've talked about you know having a rescheduling clause and making it clear let's say this person hasn't at the you know had him at the onset said oh hey you know if you want to reschedule you know each time you reschedule is going to cost this or whatever what should they do now now that they're in a situation of you know every schedule three times and now this person wants to do it we're scheduled to like december 2022 and i just i can't give them the same current rate what do i do now okay so for that one it still goes back to that same conversation about this is why it's so critical to have a fire rescheduling class from the beginning because it should let them know that first of all it's it's limited to a single rescheduling or you can in in some cases people are like will permit reschedulings but it has to be within the 12-month period from the original event date in the situation where this person doesn't have that that's why the an amendment is so essential and which like i said you guys as i've mentioned before i have a free amendment i'm giving out so it's just go to freeamendment.com and you can grab it there but um this is exactly why because then you can put anything else that you want to amend the terms from from the original agreement so even in that amendment you can state that this um the change is limited to a single change a day change and any change further than that or in addition to that will be subject to a termination of the agreements and clients will not receive and and both parties will no longer be liable to each other there will be like there will be a cancellation of liability and there will be completion of the terms of the agreement or any further changes is subject to a new agreement because you shouldn't that's another thing you shouldn't just keep adding band-aids and band-aids onto an initial agreement it's exhausting and it's a way for them for you to find holes in your agreement so having that terminate at one point or the other don't keep this on an endless loop especially if you want to be able to charge more money so let them know or you can even put it in there like i said that an additional change will be subject to x fee that way you're able to now patch that on and and maybe honestly even curb this endless um amendments and changes because you have to remember that each client is each each booking you have is another booking that you can't have so for that reason alone keeping yourself in an endless loop of day changes could then end up being a very exhausting game to play so having it there and letting them know that okay any additional changes will be subject to this and then we'll render everything and and then you can also put in that also render all previous payments non-refundable because they've already been paid and in exchange in consideration for the movement of the dates you are now in contribution for the movement of the date you are the date that you are permitting this client to move to clients understands that this is now non-refundable and then any further date changes will be subject to x fee yeah yeah no i mean i love that i think that is that is that is excellent i mean i think another thing i mean this kind of goes into just for scheduling in general like we're scheduling with lots of vendors and you know i guess depending on certain clients i have a wedding that was supposed to take place five days after um the world like officially shut down obviously kovit was looming but i was really hoping we could get through this wedding we didn't um and yeah so everybody was was booked and paid um and so we're you know we're scheduling that wedding we had to schedule it twice now um the client got pregnant so and then they live in a different state from where the wedding was taking place so there was it was very understandable reasons but we've had to you know reschedule it and there's just you know a lot going on there um and yeah it's a lot of work you know we're scheduling with a lot of clients a lot of vendors is a lot of work because everybody's availability changes daily and it's hard to find that that that perfect space so we have to we we kind of have to protect ourselves you know against that um so yeah okay i think we lost someone so i'll wait for her to come back up if anyone has any questions please raise your hand we'll bring you on stage so that you can speak um and and ask your question all right so we've got someone all hello hey hi hi conby i love you girls um you guys are hilarious especially you're very you're very straight shooter like you don't even play but my question is all right so a lot of contracts were obviously sent out uh before covet hit so what do we do do we get amendments and send it back to the client and say hey um we need you to sign this because of covet and the changes that have you know have happened or how do you navigate that because a lot of the questions that were asked it's more like you should have had your contract ready from the beginning but because this was all new to all of us um it's like how do you move forward yeah i have a i have a comment about that um so one thing that changed for me after um i kind of already mentioned uh rescheduling um in my contract but i didn't have any i didn't have a covet liability clause right basically saying that you can't sue me if you or anybody in your at your wedding gets catches covid um you know despite our best efforts and all of that because we can't control it just like the rest of the country can't control it um so that's something that i had that i did resend to clients um i did explain that i'm updating the agreement and i need them to accept it basically in order for me to show up at their events right because i need them to understand i mean granted the weddings that we did this year for the most part were smaller but i still needed them to understand that you can't just come back and and blame me for you know random stuff it's not my fault if someone just chooses not to wear a mask or if someone you know is asymptomatic and spreads coveted so i think that there's other things we have to protect ourselves against even but even beyond um like their scheduling that was the first thing that i i chose to um amend in my agreement and that was something that nobody would have had pre-code right so i think that that's kind of why i wanted to hop in and just say like that was something that i sent i allowed my clients to have time to think it through um you know and but basically just sending it to them and basically saying i i am not able to show up unless you kind of sign this um you know and and explaining that that was the only part you know that was the only thing that you know that was the only part that was amended um and in the contract i didn't really have any pushback um or or anything there and you know i've already explained to them that we're going to be wearing masks to protect the clients we're you know going to have minimal to no con you know contact on people you know explain the safety measures that are going into place but despite best safety measures it obviously was an evolving situation first the first wedding we had this year was in july so it's like i still don't think we 100 know every way that this disease is transmitted honestly but definitely then we didn't so it's just like we're going to do our best we're going to do our best we've already discussed that but no matter what like i don't want you know because that's something you want to protect yourself against too you don't want someone to get sick and pass away i mean i think we've all seen these stories in the news where they they decide that this wedding was a super spreader or this funeral or this backyard party was a super spreader event um and it just kind of happens and goes away but then i i never really hear of if there was a planner or if there was a vendor what ended up happening in that case um and if someone decided to go after that that vendor so for me i think i think that and i mean it's hard because it this this the answer to this question relies on your clients being reasonable people but i do think that you know if you can't explain like not just throw not just throw an extra two three pages on your contract and say hey i need you to sign this but explain these are the clauses that i've added and this is why it's important um i i don't know i just think that that's that's kind of like the front end like practical side to get people to understand because again people some people their eyes just glaze over once they see all those words and they're not going to read it in detail so the fact that you just explained these are the three things i'm adding this is why it's important and yes it's protecting me right but this is why it's important and i kind of need you to sign it for me to show up i think that that's that's that's a good way to um to present it and i think um i think you may have touched on like their scheduling um and cancellation too but yeah if you i if you have anything to add or correct from that said please do so yes so i've had like many most of my clients this year have had to send out new agreements or at least send out amendments and um what facial i said is right like you basically just send it out as a notice of updated agreement or notice oh you know what i mean of notices of changes first of all and then just break it down to them make it cute and flowery as much as you want to but still make sure that you know the [ __ ] is legit because our first time one of my clients she's in the audience i will mention but she sent that out and she sent out a notice basically letting them know that this is how she was going to be handling the covet situation and the reason why that was important is because like you said nobody was expecting this right so this was this was a response basically just you know letting everybody know what's up like here is the this is the state of event and here is the updated agreement with this information in terms of the schedule and that's exactly how you can do it if it's if for me obviously i think it's always better to have a new agreement presented to them that way you can terminate the old one and then just have new terms clear as day for everybody but you will find that sometimes clients will push back because they want to keep their original agreement in which case you can just do an amendment and let them know that this is your policy on this right and in
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