With insights from a clinical psychologist
Party by Todd Events, photo by Cameron Clark.
I’ve been fortunate to have worked with wedding pros from 94 countries over my career and I’ve heard from a ton of them this past month – all with similar questions, stories of lost business, uncertainties of what to say to clients who are completely stressed.
We’re all in this together. If you have questions on Coronavirus and your wedding business, feel free to email me at hello@thinksplendid.com. I’ll be sharing my answers here on the Think Splendid blog so that everyone can benefit. I’ll also keep your name anonymous. Totally free, no strings attached – I truly do not care if you never hire me.
Focus on the Splendid
We're an industry that makes our living by celebrating life's milestones, so I'm going to start each of these update posts with a few positive COVID-19 things we can all smile about:
TOTAL GLOBAL RECOVERIES
The number of global recoveries is now more than 178,500 people, up from 166,500 yesterday.
DOLLY PARTON WILL NOW READ US BEDTIME STORIES
From Nashville Scene: “As we responsibly limit our interactions with others by sheltering in place, it’s easy to feel isolated, lonely and afraid.
Dolly Parton isn’t giving up on us. The Tennessean who gave us “Jolene,” who gave us “I Will Always Love You,” who is one-third of the glorious feminist comedy 9 to 5, who sends books to 850,000 children per month — the heroic angel Dolly Parton will read us bedtime stories when we need them most.
The legend will kick off a 10-book video series on Thursday, April 2.”
This question is from an event florist:
Thank you for being a beacon of hope during this time!
I’m an event florist and I am trying to keep hope. But with rescheduling events and losing income, I don’t know what to think or do anymore.
How does one stay confident for potential clients? How do we stay in business? How can this industry survive?
Answer from Liene
I’m going to focus on the first of your three questions today and answer the other two in a different post.
Staying confident for potential clients has as much to do with keeping your mindset in a healthy place than it does accomplishing anything related to your actual to-do list. After all, you can’t save your business if you can’t get out of bed in the morning because of fear and anxiety.
Here are some practical strategies you may find helpful in staying focused, hopeful, and confident:
1) Know what your ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts) are so you can deal with them appropriately when they pop up.
In December I spoke at the Coterie Retreat, and one of my favorite sessions was by Dr. Vidal Annan (aka Dr. Vee), a clinical psychologist in New Jersey and New York (and husband to Nana Annan, the lawyer whose insights on understanding the CDC guidelines I shared here recently).
One of Dr. Vee’s key points was on identifying and harnessing your own ANTs. A short recap from my notes:
Your mind is NOT your friend . . . nor your enemy. Its job is to give you information:
it should identify a problem
it should solve problems
Stress causes ANTs. ANTs can include:
Catastrophizing or “radio station doom and gloom” thinking
Always/Never thinking as well as Everybody/No One thinking
Blame
Self-Criticism
Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda
All or Nothing
It’s not what you think, it’s how you relate to your thoughts. Instead of reacting to your thoughts, assess each one by asking:
Is this helping me right now?
Is this moving me towards my goal?
Is there profit in this thought?
If the thought is moving you toward your goal, keep it. If not, don’t give it weight and move on.
Dr. Vee also pointed out that you cannot fight a negative thought, only assess it and then say to your brain, “Thank you for that information, here’s what I’m going to do with it.”
I want to make the point that Dr. Vee is not advocating you stick your head in the sand and ignore all your problems in a misguided attempt at staying positive. Facing the reality of a situation head on allows you to put your mind to work on its one job: identifying and solving problems.
2) Forgive yourself for what you didn’t know or do pre-pandemic.
Maya Angelou’s wisdom, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better” applies here.
Did you spend a lot of money on your business in January, February, and the beginning of March counting on a major return on investment (signing a big advertising contract, attending workshops and conferences, rebranding your entire company) and now wish you had that cash in your bank account?
What’s done is done: the money’s spent and you were making a calculated risk based on the information you had at the time.
You can adjust your budget and spending for the rest of the year based on the realities of this new situation we’re in, but don’t allow yourself to feel guilty about making strategically bold financial moves three months ago when the future seemed much more clear.
Again, taking what we know about ANTs from Dr. Vee: when these “woulda, shoulda, coulda” thoughts pop up, say something to yourself like, “You made those decisions based on the information you had then and you’re making new decisions based on the information you have now.”
3) If you’re having trouble turning your mind off when you’re trying to fall asleep at night, I recommend a self-talk exercise I call the “Affirmation Alphabet.”
Basically, if the ANTs that show up when your head hits the pillow at night include negative self-talk or replaying all the conversations or decisions that could have gone a different way, then counter them by working through the alphabet with “I am” statements that affirm your positive qualities.
For example, “I am Ambitious, I am Brave, I am Compassionate,” etc. Reminding yourself of all your good traits focuses your mind on those as you fall asleep and prevents it from keeping you awake with all of the “what if” scenarios.
Doing this every night will also boost your confidence because you are taking the time daily to tell your mind what you love about yourself. I know this method sounds cheesy, but it works, and finding things that work is what we’re going for here.
4) Create “quick win” goals to build momentum and feel a sense of accomplishment.
Make a list of things you can do right now that don’t require a long time to finish. Crossing these off your list will help you feel like you’re getting things done, which will put you in the right headspace to keep working away at the other, longer-term items on your to-do list.
Yes, you should definitely be triaging and prioritizing right now on the most pressing aspects COVID is having on your business, but spending 15-45 minutes a day knocking out things from your “quick wins” list will go a long way in keeping your spirits up mentally.
This list might be filled with the mundane basics that create a solid foundation and keep your business running smoothly:
Rename 2-3 blog posts on your site each day with SEO friendly titles and re-upload them.
Fix your inquiry form in a way that causes more people to fill it out
If you’re behind on bookkeeping, enter 5 receipts each day into Quickbooks
5) Acknowledge that true experts never stop learning and work relentlessly on pushing yourself to be better.
The wedding industry is full of true experts who are creative and who help raise the bar for everyone. Unfortunately, it is also full of charlatans. And for people who don’t know what they don’t know about what you do – which is almost all wedding clients – you will have to show what sets you apart from the fakers and the takers.
In order to do this you need to know your field, your subject, your product, your process inside and out. You have to be able to roll with the punches and be able to say, “Don’t worry, there is way more where that came from” when someone copies or straight up steals from you.
You need to know how to securely rig a truss so that you don’t get every other designer banned from hanging floral chandeliers in that venue in the future. You need to know what to do when the fire inspector shuts down your production installation three hours before the wedding begins. You need to know any OSHA and health compliance regulations that legally must be followed when the best man who was taking shots all day vomits all over your centerpiece arrangement in the middle of dinner. You need to know what to do when you find the groom passed out from a cocaine overdose.
And yes, all of these are true examples of things that have happened.
True experts know that if they’ve arrived, they’ve settled: there is always more to learn and always room to grow. If you have extra time on your hands right now, use it to expand and further solidify your expertise by doing a deep dive into the aspects of business and art you want to learn more about.
Questions from Wedding Pros
When I say we’re all in this together, I mean we are all in this together. I am not a blogger, I am a business consultant and speaker. This blog is not sponsored nor ad supported and is not how I make my income. Since we are all in this together, I am not charging consulting fees to answer questions related to COVID-19.
I will continue answering Coronavirus-related wedding business questions from ANY wedding, event, or hospitality professional, located anywhere in the world, here on the blog over the next few weeks and possibly longer, so that anyone, anywhere in the world can access the information they may need for their business at any time.
I’ll be continuing to work through the questions sent in so far here on the blog so that we can all navigate this together as best we can. Please send any questions you have to hello@thinksplendid.com and remember there is no such thing as a dumb question.
I’ll be keeping the names anonymous so you don’t have to worry about being attached to a question in a Google search or in case you don’t want a colleague or competitor to know what’s on your mind.
Written by
LIENE STEVENS
Liene Stevens, the founder and CEO of Think Splendid, is an author, speaker, and award-winning business strategist. Armed with $2000, a healthy work ethic, and an undeserved dose of privilege, Liene bootstrapped Think Splendid from a scribble in a notebook to a successful wedding business consulting firm with a client list spanning 94 countries.
