How to Secure Your First Commission As a Wedding Planner

How to Secure Your First Commission As a Wedding Planner
By Lisa M Morris

It's perfectly true to say that the wedding planning business sector is currently booming.

There is huge demand for such services and it's potentially a very rewarding and lucrative area for a business to operate in. Even so, just like any other business, actually getting underway can be something of a challenge.

The pros and cons

On the positive side, as mentioned above, once you have completed your wedding planner training you can be sure that there are going to be a lot of people out there who might be potentially receptive to your proposals and quotations.

On the downside, securing your first two or three commissions in any line of self-employed work is never easy.

Why?

From your own experience, you will know that it's sometimes easy to feel a little bit uncertain about someone who is trying to sell you their services when they have little or no verifiable track record to show you. In other words, if they have never done it successfully for anyone else, how can you trust them to do it well for you?

This is a real dilemma and one that is by no means restricted to wedding planning businesses.

Fortunately, there are some things you can do that will help to secure your first commission as a wedding planner.

Work as an assistant to gain experience

Many successful wedding planners are run off their feet with more work than they can handle. You may find that if you offer your services to one of them as an unpaid assistant for a time, you will be able to gain front-line experience in what's involved in planning a real wedding.

Providing the wedding planner agrees, you can then add that experience to your portfolio and cite it when you are selling your own services as a wedding planner.
Use your friends and family

Although these opportunities might not be available every week, it's highly likely that through your network of friends and family you will know of weddings that are taking place. You could offer your services to the couples concerned as a wedding planner or assistant on a free-of-charge basis, simply in order to build up a couple of successful client engagements for that all-important portfolio.

Of course, if you want to keep close friends and family members happy, make sure you get it right!

Offer price incentives

It is perfectly true that your earnings potential as a successful wedding planner will be substantial.

However, be realistic.

Expecting to get the same income as a highly experienced wedding planner on day-one of your business start-up is likely to lead only to disappointment. People will be prepared to pay premium prices for premium experience but if a client is going to take a chance on a relatively unproven wedding planner, they may expect to see that reflected in the prices they're being offered.

Be patient, let your reputation build up and as it does, increase your prices accordingly to market levels. At the outset though, give people a good financial reason to use you as opposed to a more experienced wedding planner.

Lisa Morris is an author of this article and she is having more than 25 years experience in wedding planning and event management. Here she is giving wonderful information about wedding planner training & course for those people who start their career in wedding & event planning. For more info please visit the website http://www.weddingplanneracademy.com.au/

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