Showing posts with label Celebrant Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celebrant Resources. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Marketing Yourself as a Celebrant

 Separating Yourself from other Celebrants

1. Have you studied public speaking, taken drama classes or singing lessons? All these are some of the talents which other celebrants won’t have. 

2. Have you studied law, or languages or done volunteer work? These are some other talents which can differentiate you from other celebrants. 

3. If English is your second language, you might be just what your compatriots are looking for. Not only will you be able to conduct a ceremony in a language which all of their guests will understand, you might offer to be a translator for other officiants who are associated with couples using your language.

4. Celebrants who are parents or grandparents might have a natural affinity for ceremonies dealing with children.

5. Officiants who themselves have enjoyed long, happy partnerships might look to attract couples celebrating their renewal of wedding vows in as part of their wedding anniversary celebration.

 6. If you enjoy photography or art generally, it might make you a bit of an expert when it comes to drafting certificates for various ceremonies or even taking a few snaps for those couples who’ve decided on an elopement ceremony with only two witnesses. You end up being not only their celebrant, but also the one to create memories for them through your photographic skills.

7. If you’re young and exuberant, the younger clients might love your energy.

8. If you’re an older, more sedate person, clients might enjoy your unflappability.

9. As a retiree, your accessibility might be a real plus for the client who is tired of talking to the answering machines of celebrants who are in full time employment and never home.

When thinking of advertising yourself as a celebrant, keep in mind what the client is after. This will include: 

1. What will the client receive from you that he won’t receive from other celebrants? 

2. What are some problems associated with the particular event that you have the answer for, and for which other celebrants don’t? 

3. How can they tell that your fee is based on value for money and not just a figure that you’ve pulled out of a hat? 

4. Why are your fees so much lower or higher than those of other celebrants? 

Other things, which will go towards the image you want to project, are the physical attributes that the client will experience when he contacts you. This will be: 

1. How you sound answering you phone. Are you friendly and interested in what the client has to say? Do you come across as a helpful and caring person? Do you inspire confidence by understanding what your responsibilities as an officiant are? 

2. What your recorded message on your answering machine suggests. Is the message clear and concise giving options to the client as to how he can contact you in the future without wasting his time ringing over and over again? Are you prompt in returning the call? 

3. The quality and professionalism of any printed information you send out to the potential client. Do you work towards making your printed material memorable by using a particular theme or logo for your letter heads, business cards and leaflets or brochures? How about colour-coordinating every bit of paper you sent out, including the paper clip you use to keep the pages together? 

4. Delivering on your promise. Are you careful about promising to do things for clients in a certain time only if you know you can do it, so that they’re not waiting for information brochures or kit for weeks, instead of the day or two you told them? 

5. The way your office – home or otherwise – looks from the street, front door, and inside. Are the surrounds neat and tidy and your entrance inviting? Are any pets kept away from the gate so that your client doesn’t have to fight his way to your door? Does your interview room smell fresh and look inviting with fresh flowers or other indication of a welcoming attitude? 

6. If you use a door bell do you answer it promptly instead of having your client kicking his heels on the doorstep wondering whether he’s come to the right place? 

7. How friendly you are in all your communication by phone, printed material and in person. Do you try to make all your communication personal as well as presentable and professional? 

8. How organized you sound, look and act. Whether on the phone or at the interview, do you make sure that you have everything at hand that you need? 

9. Your standard of dress. Are you aware of your client’s expectations as to how you should dress? Have you taken the trouble to see how other celebrants dress and handle themselves? How do you want to be perceived by your clients in terms of how you dress?

Extract from How to be a Profitable Celebrant


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Sunday, March 28, 2021

ABC of Life

 Reading from 500+ Readings for Various Ceremonies

A......Act. Don’t react.

B......Be kind to yourself first, it will follow that you’ll be kind to others.

C......Choose your life. Don’t let others do it for you, no matter how good their intentions.

D......Don’t worry. Be happy.

E......Each day is an opportunity to live well.

F......Find your dream and follow it.

G......Goals give you directions. Go through them every day.

H......Have fun. Life was meant to be easy.

I.......Ideas are only useful if you do something about them.

J.......Join people and groups that make you feel great. Avoid the rest.

K.....Know what you want and go for it.

L......Live today. Yesterday’s gone, and tomorrow never comes.

M.....Make your life mean something.

N.....Negative people are debilitating. Avoid them at all costs.

O.....One day at a time is all the living you need do.

P......Promise less. Deliver more.

Q......Quiet time gives you a chance to take stock of yourself.

R......Reacting to others is living their life, not your own.

S......Stop to smell the roses every chance you get.

T......Tomorrow never comes. Do it today.

U......Undervalue no one, especially yourself.

V......Volunteer from the heart, not from the head.

W.....Wishing won’t make it so. Do it instead.

X.......‘Xellent results come from ‘xellent planning.

Y.......You need to know what you want before you can get it.

Z......Zero work. Zero results.



Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: ,

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

July Sale

Smashwords July Sale

50% off 




Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Business Fees


As a celebrant, setting a fee for your services will be one of the things you need to decide early. You will want to set a fee which you feel will cover your running expenses, plus allows you to make a profit. But you need to take into consideration what clients will pay for your services, given the competition already in existence. 

Fortunately, finding out what other celebrants are charging should not be too difficult. But in setting out your fees you need to know how your services differentiate from those of your competitors, and why clients will come to you rather than go to another celebrant. 

Before you begin to play the numbers game, you need to know a few things about yourself and your business. This will include:
1. What is your aim in becoming a celebrant? 

2. Why should clients come to you, instead of using any one of the other officiants around? 

3. What particular strengths and talents have you got to help you in the running of your celebrancy business? 

4. What are some of your weaknesses which might work against you? 

5. Who are your potential clients? How old are they and how well off are they? 

6. How do they perceive the business of celebrancy generally? 

7. In what way will they be better off by coming to you than by going to another celebrant? 

8. What fees do the other celebrant charge? 

9. Can you charge more and still attract clients? 

10. Can you charge less and still be profitable? 

11. Can you offer clients something more or something different than they will receive from other celebrants, that will be of significant benefit to them? 

12. What exactly are clients looking for – saving money, better service, convenience? 

In the beginning, when you have no criteria for setting your fee, your only option might be to charge a similar price as other celebrants. You will need to have some idea of how they came upon that particular figure. It could be that they have streamlined their business to such an extent that they can provide their services much more cheaply than you will be able to. It could also be, that like you, they’re flying blind, and without knowing it, they’re losing money even though they’re getting the bookings. 

You will also need to justify your prices not only to yourself, but also to your client. Most will ring a number of celebrants to find out what fees they can expect to pay. Instead of becoming defensive, embarrassed or just plain angry, recognize that the client has every right to ask you why your charges are so much higher or so much lower than the other celebrants  they have spoken to. Work out your own reasons, then you will be able to face these questions with confidence rather than indignation. 

Once you have some figures of the costs involved in running the business of celebrancy, you can determine your own fee structure, remembering though, that your client will have the last word. You need to convince clients that the fee is worth what they’re getting. In the case of many ceremonies, which are little understood, the client’s perception is that they’re paying hundreds of dollars for ten minutes of the celebrant’s time. It is up to the celebrant to ensure that the client is made aware of all that goes into those ten minutes. Crucial to that, is your image for professionalism and expertise. 

In the beginning when bookings are few and far between, some celebrants decide that any booking is better than none. With that in mind, they will ask for the lowest fees which clients are willing to pay, undercutting every other celebrant in the area. They will also travel anywhere to get these bookings. At this stage they may be aware that, in fact, they are losing money, instead of making it. Their thinking is, that when they have established themselves they will then ask for a higher fee. More often, though, such celebrants are not keeping any records to show whether they’re making money or not. And just how much money they’re losing in the meantime. 

Sooner or later these celebrants find that while they’re extremely busy, they have nothing to show for it when it comes to money. Their low fees will often also be reflected by their services. The celebrant is too busy and too poor to provide anything but sub-standard service. When he eventually raises his fees, the type of clients he’s been attracting will go elsewhere. As everyone knows, it’s a lot easier to drop your fees without affecting your client numbers, than to raise your fees. 

At the other extreme is the celebrant who tries to recoup all his expenses in the first year of work, using the few clients he gets in which to do it. 

Whether you charge a high or low fee should be dependent not on what you’d like to get, but rather how good you are. By all means charge high prices if you’re sure that your clients are getting their money’s worth. Most celebrants, like most small business people are frightened of pricing themselves out of the market. However, you should be able to charge what you think you are worth. 

To decide that, you need to know just how much time you’re spending on the ceremony, and just how good a service you’re providing. If you know that your service is better than those of other celebrants who are charging higher fees, then by all means charge those fees yourself. It’s preferable that you do fewer ceremonies and get paid for them, than that you perform many ceremonies and are losing money while doing so. What is vital is that the client perceives the quality of your service is worth the fee. 

As a new celebrant, testing the water, you can make an introductory offer, stipulating that these prices will only last so long, and then the fee will go up. If, after the introductory offer expires, you find that your services are better than those of other celebrants around you, ask for the fee that compensates you accordingly.




Based on How to be a Profitable Celebrant

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Monday, November 18, 2019

Become a Celebrant - and a Successful Business Person

What sort of characteristic do you need to have to be a celebrant and a successful business person?

Here are some characteristics that I've thought of. Perhaps you can add to the list.

1. Initiative
Business people who succeed take personal responsibility for what happens. Action is the key. Whatever you plan to do, you do it in a timely fashion. Any promises you make to yourself or to your clients are kept because you enjoy the challenge of getting things done. You know the importance of promoting yourself as a business person and are active in doing just that.

2. Persistence
No one has ever succeeded without persistence. By focusing on exactly what you want to achieve as a celebrant you will be able to overcome the inevitable challenges that will come your way. You have the self-confidence in not only being ready to undertake a task, but to keep at it until it’s finished.

3. Planning
Essential requirement is that you know exactly the outcome you want in planning every step of the way. This includes making a detailed list of your immediate and long-term goals, and tackling them in an orderly fashion. Knowing where you want to go, and putting in place realistic initiatives which will take you there, is a necessary requirement.

4. Flexibility
Change is inevitable in every aspect of life. It is inevitable in your business. Accept it and use it to your advantage. While having a plan for your business so that you know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there, continue to watch what’s happening around you, and revise your own methods and ideas so that you don’t get left behind.

5. Clear, creative and analytical thinking
You need to be an ideas person, aware of trends and fashions, working towards being the first, rather than the last to adopt new ways of celebrating various ceremonies. While as a celebrant you are a people person, as a business person you need to be logical and rational, and perhaps even a bit pragmatic. Feelings and sentimental thinking need to take second place to running your business as a financial success.

6. Communication skills
Celebrancy requires the skill of getting along with people. You need to enjoy working with your clients, networking with people in your industry, gaining their goodwill and support. Competence in human relations, including the ability to get along with others is imperative. Creating relationships with all the people you come in contact includes the ability to mix easily with people, be a person easy to get to know, and be a real asset in social situations. Ability to talk easily, and enjoying talking, is a real asset.

7. Able to describe the services you provide
Unlike tangible goods which customers can see, and hold and touch, your services are very much in the perception of the client. It is you who must be able to communicate the benefits and advantages of your services to the client. No matter how good, or even how much better you are than other celebrants, in order to sell your services to a client you must need to communicate this fact to her.

In effect, you are the product you’re selling. You must be able to communicate your differences from other celebrants. Your enthusiasm and passion for what you’re doing. The experience and the training which makes you the professional you are. The qualities that make you and your services unique. 

6. Confident
Since you are the product you’re selling, you need to be confident by knowing what you are about. You can only convince others by knowing and believing in your professionalism and your ability to provide quality service.

7. Reliable
Your clients, like everyone else, have experienced the frustration of calls that are never returned, the promised information that never arrives, the waste of time waiting for service people who might arrive today or tomorrow, or hopefully by the end of the week. As a successful business person, you never promise what you can’t deliver and you always try to deliver more than you promise.

8. Self-motivation
You need to believe in what you’re doing, in the way you’re doing it, and in your ability to achieve what you’ve set out to achieve. As a self-employed person it is not enough for you to merely have goals which you want to achieve. You must be able to motivate yourself to do whatever it takes to actively promote these goals. Planning is not enough. You need to be committed to what you’ve set out to do.

9. Business like
You might love dealing with people, but you must never lose sight of the fact that you’re running a business and not a charitable institution. Be financially responsible by charging fees that repay the time and money that you put into running your celebrancy business.

Initially, almost all people starting a new business are just a little embarrassed about asking for their fee, and worrying about the fee being too high. Unless you get over it very quickly, you won’t be running a business for too long. 

10. Robust health
Look after your health. Celebrancy is about being on time and on the ball. Since stresses are inevitable, make sure you don’t succumb by taking care of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. Make some rules about how you want to run your business and what time off you would like to have. Some celebrants choose not to perform ceremonies on public or religious holidays because they prefer to spend that time with their family and friends. Decide on your priorities so that you won’t feel that you are wholly controlled by your business.





Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Have you heard?


The 10th annual Smashwords Read an Ebook Week will start on Sunday March 3 and end Saturday March 9.

To start off the year I am taking part in the “10th annual Smashwords Read an Ebook Week”. All my books are 50% off on Smashwords right until 9th March. Check them out.


* How to be a Profitable Celebrant   *  1,000+ Answers to your Wedding Questions   *  Wedding Your Way   *  Celebrating Love's Special Moments   *  You can be a Successful Officiant   * Wording Words   *  Honeymoon! A Sizzle or a Fizzle



Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Networking at Weddings


One of the best places to impress possible clients is at the ceremonies you perform. If you are a marriage celebrant you will learn, in preparing the legal documents, not only the clients’ names but also those of their parents. But in all ceremonies, it is more than likely that other persons, apart from your clients, will be involved in the ceremony. Make an effort to learn the names before you get to the ceremony and try to make a point of seeing and speaking to these people. Don’t think of the time before or after the ceremony as wasted time. Rather use this time to get to know as many people as you can by speaking to them.

To make your contact with people effective, make the conversation less a few minutes of pretending to listen, and genuinely listen. If you don’t understand what the conversation is about, ask. If you hold a conversation with someone long enough, you will probably arrive at a subject in which both of you can find interest.

Don’t allow you client, or whoever is looking after you, to introduce you to a group of people with, ‘This is John, this is Mary, this is..’. It is unlikely that you will remember any of them, and worse, you will be too backward in asking the names of the people individually, and thus lose a valuable time in finding out where each of these people fit.

Instead, suggest that you will introduce yourself - and do it. Spend enough time with each person to find out their name, their connection to the client and something of interest about the person concerned. Ask for their business card if you find someone whose services you might use, or whom you want to contact for further information, and offer yours if he asks for it. Carry the cards in a neat little box or wallet that you can carry easily any place you go.

As far as maintaining conversation is concerned, ask questions in a way which will give the person an opportunity to give you a reply of a few sentences instead of just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Whether speaking or listening, don’t ask for clarifications of details which are not important for the overall picture. Look for the message and not the detours.

We are becoming an ageing population so recognise this when talking to groups of people. Make an effort to speak clearly and loudly if you know from experience that people are finding you difficult to understand. Similarly, if you’re having difficulty in hearing, make it a bit of a joke that every since you turned forty or fifty or whatever, your hearing isn’t what it used to be.

Some people do tend to speak very softly, especially in a social situation, and unless you encourage them to speak up, the conversation can keep you uncomfortable and fearful that you’re about to be asked a question and you have absolutely no idea what reply to make. Inaudibility, like bad breath, is a subject that nobody wants to raise, but which will make for much happier interaction when it is raised.

Never forget, that celebrancy is a people thing. Everyone needs people, and in particular, celebrants whose business is people.

Excerpt from 'How to be a Profitable Celebrant'


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Friday, September 1, 2017

Celebrate Father's Day

There’s a saying that everyday is a children’s day, consequently two days of the year have been named as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. The concept of honouring parents was initially the honouring of the mother who was traditionally the carer of children. Only subsequently was it decided that fathers also play a part in their children’s welfare. 

Father’s day is celebrated on the second Sunday in September. The day is thought to be fitting for the family to get together. Often, it is also the time when a daughter or a son might bring their partner to introduce to their parents. The celebration can become quite gargantuan when families begin to join up with their predecessors and their families. Inevitably sons and daughters, especially of the teenage verity, begin to rebel against having to spend a day with old and unknown uncles and aunts, and even great, great uncles and aunts.

In order to avoid this friction it is usual for the immediate family to celebrate the occasion by a breakfast in bed for dad. If breakfast in bed does not appeal - and this is true for many parents - the next best thing is to allow him to sleep the morning through, with a late breakfast for all when the parent eventually gets up.

The older Father, with his  brothers and sisters, may then celebrate the Day with his own parents and great parents by taking them out to lunch or have a family barbecue or morning or afternoon tea. In the meantime, their own teenage or grown-up children can do their own thing. 

Gifts become harder the older parents get. Those living in small spaces may find it hard to accommodate large gifts, and appreciate those that are wholly practical or symbolic of the family unity. For the father there might be his very own, extra comfortable chair, or even paid golf lessons at his local club. For the older parent there might be tickets for a short trip to a place he has always wanted to go and has not been able to afford.

The cake usually provided for Father’s day is anything the parents enjoy, but is often decorated like a birthday cake with an appropriate message. If one of the children is currently engaged the invited guest might consider bringing a special cake for the parents as a recognition that he or she is in the process of becoming a member of the family.

These and other celebrations can be found in 'Celebrating Love's Special Moments' found on  Amazon and Smashwords,




Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)