Jared Judge: 0:02

What's up? Denver Event Professionals? Welcome back to another episode of the Denver NACE Podcast where you'll learn amazing tips, tricks and tools to help you grow your events business here in Denver, brought to you by our local chapter of the National Association for Catering and Events. I am your host, jared Judge, founder and music director of Extreme Strings Electric Violins. I am super excited today to bring a special guest who you probably have heard his name several times. You've probably encountered him, you know, maybe through your experience through WeddingPro, perhaps through his podcast, wedding Business Solutions, or maybe a sales training session. So welcome, please. Alan Berg. Thanks so much for being here.

Alan Berg: 0:48

Thanks for inviting me, jared. It's great. I love NACE and I love that I'm getting to come back out, because it's been way too long since I've been in Denver, or, as I say, it was BC before COVID.

Jared Judge: 0:57

Oh, yes, for sure. Well, we are so excited to have you, and we're especially excited because you are coming and delivering a masterclass for our chapter and invited guests on April 9th at the Gaylord Rockies Hotel and Convention Center. Would you mind telling us a bit about what we can expect at this April 9th event?

Alan Berg: 1:18

Absolutely, and I love that property as well, because the last time I was in Denver actually wasn't that property, and I'm going to be there twice this year because National Speakers Association is having our event there as well. So a masterclass, different than just the presentation which I'll be doing at the evening meeting, I'll be doing a presentation called your Brand Is More Than your Logo, and that meeting is what you typically would expect. You're going to come and you can do networking. You're going to eat, you're going to hear a presentation, that one is going to talk about how branding is different than your brand, and really to understand your brand is to understand you why. So that's the evening part. So you can probably picture that, although you may not picture me there because you might have seen me at the wedding MBA or some big stage like that, but I'm coming to you for that. But that afternoon we're doing something really cool which is a masterclass, and what a masterclass is different is its presentations. But it's a longer session because we get to dive deeper into those things. I want you to actually be not just taking notes, but taking action right there. So we're going to be talking about from the inquiry to the sale.

Alan Berg: 2:22

And this is where the rubber meets the road, where you and I were talking offline about how the business of whatever it is you do is different than the craft of what you do. And that's the thing with the wedding and event industry. Back in my days when I was VP of sales at the knot, and even before that when I was publishing wedding magazines, I ran into so many creative people and continue to run into so many creative people. But creative people don't necessarily have business skills. They have creative skills, right. So the creative skill that makes you a great fill in the blank photographer, florist, band DJ, dress designer, caterer, whatever it is you do those skills are different than the skills you need to sell. So, once you get that inquiry right, there's four steps to getting more sales get their attention, get an inquiry, have a conversation, make a sale. I don't care what you're selling, it's the same four steps. You could be selling airplanes, it's the same four steps there. So, through that, what I'm going to take you through is, when you get that inquiry, how do you have a better conversation so you get ghosted less? That's one of the biggest frustrations I hear from people. I get the inquiry, I respond as quickly as I can. Nothing, that's it. I don't hear back.

Alan Berg: 3:32

I had an email from a client of mine in California through one of the platform she's advertising and they only let her reply once. And I've taught her to reply four, five, six, seven times and she's like what do I do? I'm only allowed to reply once. I was like find a different platform. I mean right, right, you know, because it's crazy that they're only letting her reply once, when we know that the customer, the way customers respond, and when we're customers we do the same thing. You inquire with someone, they respond. You may not be available to reply when they respond. And now, when you put yourself back at the top of their inbox or their messaging box or their text box or on the not wedding wire, instagram, facebook, you know, go down the line. You now have their attention again. And very few people in our industry are already doing cold calling. I would imagine with NACE there probably aren't that many people out there doing cold calling.

Jared Judge: 4:23

Probably not.

Alan Berg: 4:25

Yeah, and I've done that. I did 10 years worth of cold calling. I went from being an inside sales to being 10 years driving around knocking on doors like yours, doing cold calling. And the challenge with cold calling is, even if you do it smarter, you don't know if they need what you do. Right, you can say this is a business in this industry and, yes, they're doing things like this. But did they need you today? I don't know. But when somebody fills out your contact form, right, or goes and messages you on your social media or on an ad platform, or calls you or walks in, the need has been established. Now you just have to help them buy.

Alan Berg: 4:59

So one of the things I'm going to be talking about is how do we sell the results of what we do instead of the services, because they don't really want your services. Think about it Nobody needs a band, nobody needs food, nobody needs chairs, right, they need a place to have an event because they're bringing people together and they want those people to fill in the blank, have a great time, dance, eat, drink and walk away saying it was an amazing time. But those things that we sell, those products and services, are the means to the end, which is how do you want people to feel? What is the result that's important to them. So that's a lot of what we're going to be talking about and how to articulate that, both in writing, in person, asking better questions, following up One thing that I found I did a presentation at Wedding MBA last year on secret shopping and we secret stopped over 200 companies last year and I got to say that our industry wonderful, creative people really bad at following up. Now what was crazy is almost 20% of the companies we inquired with and I'm talking about going to your website filling out your contact form almost 20% didn't respond at all. I did not even want yeah. So just so you had that. Like what? What do you mean? Like you, and I can't imagine ever not replying to someone who inquires, and I would imagine that the businesses that didn't think that they do and want to, but for whatever reason they didn't, and what that means is either there's a technology problem and they never got the inquiry or they were air quotes too busy at that time to reply. But I just did a podcast on my podcast about this. Your customers don't care how busy you are, right when they reach out. The need has been established and they want to reply now. So we're going to talk about my experience of the secret shopping and how that can teach you how to do this better than your competitors, because rarely are we the only ones someone's reaching out to right. I mean, that'd be nice.

Alan Berg: 7:01

I actually gotten inquiry today from someone that I've known for years and she's having trouble with her business and she reached out to me and we were able to find a time. She needed it sooner than I had on my calendar, was able to squeeze her in and I said thanks for thinking of me and she wrote me back. She texted me invited with. This whole thing happened through text. I did not try to switch it to a phone call. We're having a great conversation. She texted back you're the only one I thought of. Now, I didn't know that when she reached out, but I treated it that way, even though I didn't know that, because I'm on the short list. Now it happened to be a list of one, which is a great list, but we're not usually that lucky. We're usually the short list of three or five or seven or something like that, and we just have to help them get results.

Alan Berg: 7:45

This person didn't reach out to me because they wanted to spend money today. They reached out to me because there was a problem, challenge, crisis, something they're thinking of. They need to sounding board, whatever it happened to be. You know, in this case, their business is down and it's down in significantly from what they would expect it to be now and they're having a panic mode. So I'm going to play part sales consultant, part consultant, part sales trainer, part psychologist, all of those things, because there's a result that they want. The result that they want is to feel more confident about their business and they want to be able to close more sales. And you know, I'm going to dig into that and find that out.

Alan Berg: 8:28

But at the point that they reached out, there's something called the zero moment of truth. There was a point where this person said I need help Right Now. At that point, are we on their radar? So when someone says, like, I have a son who's engaged right now out in California, right, thank you you would think what is it? The shoemakers, kids have no shoes, right? You would think they're going to plan way in advance and all this? No, they want to get married this fall in the Bay Area, right, and it's, as we're recording this, the end of February this year, but next year, this year, right. So I got them a wedding planner because they need help, professional help.

Alan Berg: 9:07

People don't know what they don't know. They're also both working and they're busy and all those things, and I said you need help, especially if you want to make this happen this fall. Right, so let's do this. It's one of those things. The two biggest regrets people have after the weddings are in survey after survey not having a wedding planner and not having video. Those are the two things that they regret is not having those two things, and it's because you don't understand the value of the result until you don't have it.

Jared Judge: 9:38

It's very true, and that reminds me of an observation I was going to say before, which is regarding sales training and marketing training. Most people in our industry don't actually spend the time and effort to learn it until they recognize they have a need for it. It's not a matter of just like. Let's set ourselves up with the fundamentals so we never have these issues. It's always doctor, I'm bleeding, what do I do?

Alan Berg: 10:04

Exactly, and there are people on our industry that are proactive. And I just looked at something this morning. I was curious with myself when I did my QuickBooks this morning how much did I spend last year on my continuing education? Now some people would think like, okay, wait a minute, why are you doing continuing education? You're a certified speaking professional, one of 40 global speaking fellows in the world. You've written 10 books. Why are you doing that? And the answer is that successful people understand that they don't know everything, and my philosophy is that I don't ever want to be the best I can ever be, but I do want to be the best. I've ever been every time so not including travel, because travel is an extensive part of this I spent over $5,000 last year just on conference fees. That's not including the airfare to get there, the hotels and all that, so we can imagine it's at least double that. But my business, when I look at my top line and my bottom line, is more successful because of that, and some of that is just meeting new people. Some of that is just experiencing things I wouldn't.

Alan Berg: 11:11

I'm going to go to four speaker conferences this year three in the US, one in the UK and last year, the one that I went to in the UK they asked me to speak, and not originally, but they asked me to speak afterwards. And it was interesting because I had asked about speaking and they said, no, we have all our speakers. But I donate to what's called the foundation, which, like many things and Nace and Eileen and a lot of these groups have foundations to help people who've fallen on hard times, right, because natural disasters and things like that. So there's one for the speaking world, there's one for the national speakers association this happened to be the one in the UK that's called the PSAUKI, the professional speakers association of the UK and Ireland. So I donated consulting sessions and all the money went to the foundation. Well, after I did a couple of those sessions one of them with the incoming president of the group all of a sudden they asked me to speak, right, so there was no room until they saw results, right, I just said that before was selling results. All of a sudden they're like wait a minute, whatever you just did for me privately, you need to come do that in our conference, because now they experienced those results.

Alan Berg: 12:18

Kind of like I was at a wedding a year ago, january, and they had both a band and a DJ both really great. And I'm looking at this DJ thinking he's got this dance floor packed. He owned this room. The only three people who weren't dancing were me, my 93-year-old uncle and my 91-year-old aunt, and I was sitting there with them because I don't get to see them very often, and my uncle ended up passing out that long after. So it was a good thing I did. But I'm watching this dance floor going, wow, this is great. Well, I come to find out that the couple saw him in another wedding. I also turned out that I knew him because I had done a sales training for his company a couple of years before. He looks familiar, but they saw the result and they wanted that result. He was a means to an end. They didn't want the person, they wanted the results of hiring that person.

Alan Berg: 13:05

If you can't perceive a difference between results from one company and another, you're going to go with the cheaper company. If you don't perceive there's any benefit of investing in your education, you're not going to do it. And the thing is it's an intangible because, like with me, with my stuff, somebody came up to me at Wedding MBA, and I love when somebody starts a conversation this way Alan, don't take this the wrong way Like, okay, what's coming next here? And they said I saw you about five years ago and I thought you were a really good speaker, but you're so much better now. And I said, thank you, I don't take that the wrong way. Take it exactly the way you meant it, which was you were good, you're better.

Alan Berg: 13:47

Well, that's why I spend so much money investing in my education. That's why I study the craft of what I do, not just the business side and all of that. And what does that mean is I watch other speakers and I go what did she do that was so good? Or ooh, why did they do that? Don't do that, right and the same you're a musician, I'm a musician. You watch other musicians and sometimes you're like, wow, that blow my mind. And other times you're like, ooh, I wouldn't have done that right over there, right, unless you're Miles Davis, and then you could get away with it. And if you don't know, miles Davis had a great quote. Somebody said do you ever hit a wrong note? And he said, yeah, I hit wrong notes all the time. Well, what do you do when you hit a wrong note? I just keep hitting it until it sounds like I meant to do that.

Alan Berg: 14:37

Exactly that's jazz. That is jazz. That is jazz right there. And jazz is improvisation. Well, sometimes we need to be in the orchestra for the classical concert. We have to play every note exactly as it's written on the paper. And there are other times where it's improvisation right, where we have to go with it. When you're meeting with someone to sell them on your services or, as I like to say, help them buy the results of your services, that's improvisation. Sales scripts are like that chart that they're given to a musician you have to play this.

Alan Berg: 15:08

When I was in the jazz band in high school, I was the second piano player. Right, there was a guy that was way more technically skilled than I was and classically, you put any piece of music in front of him he could play it. But if you gave him 12 measures to improvise, he didn't know what to do because he needed the music, right. You know people like that. He needed the music. I lived for those 12 measures. I wanted that improvisation. And the teacher hands me this chart and he says, okay, this is it, this is you're going to be the lead. I said, okay, I have to play this. He goes yeah, I said exactly this. He said yeah. I said every time he said yeah.

Alan Berg: 15:46

Well, that is like when I started in the industry. I was trained air quotes here. I was trained with a manual, this big three-ring binder with all these page sleeve things, and I was supposed to go out and do sales and literally go front to back in this book. And I had already been in sales for 10 years before that. I'm scratching my head, going that's what we do, like that's what you're supposed to do, like go through that. And she's my trainer. She's like yes, this is what you do. Well, she went back to the main office and I put the manual away because that's not how you sell.

Alan Berg: 16:19

You're not listening. If you're going through A to Z, you're no better than the tram driver at Disney and on your right is Magic Mountain and you're left the Cinderella's castle. And what we have to learn is we learn by listening, not by talking. My most popular book if you're seeing this over my shoulder there's three orange covers. It's shut up and sell more weddings and events. And that's because we learn by listening. When we're talking, we know everything we're about to say. So one of the things I like to teach in my training and in the workshop is what does listening mean? What are better questions to ask that will get us better answers, to get people feeling different things, and that's a lot of what we're going to cover.

Jared Judge: 17:01

Yeah, that sounds amazing. You don't have the time to go through all of that, and if our listeners want to get all of it, then they got to come to our meeting and event April 9th at the Gaylord Rockies, which you can go and get a ticket at nacedenfordcom. But I'd love to continue. I've heard so many amazing lessons from you, and some of them maybe you didn't even intend as lessons such as you know, it was combined with the mystery shopping of other vendors, but even just watching what other people in our industry are doing, like when you're watching speakers, you're noticing. These are the good things that I would love to incorporate into what I do. These are the not so good things that I would like to avoid doing. We, as wedding and events vendors, should do more of that, because we can't get stuck in our own ways, and that's just not a great way to progress and match the times. You look like you were about to say something.

Alan Berg: 17:54

Yeah, I mean we have to look outside of our industry sometimes for the good ideas, because otherwise we're only hearing the same things. We're in our echo chamber and I listened to a lot of audio books. I love to read a book, but I would read one or two paperback books a year and, according to audible, I read 44 audio books last year. Now I don't know that I finished them all. I know I started 44. Some of them, yeah, maybe not, and some of them were just I'm still reading because they were just longer and sometimes you just see something somewhere else and you go, okay, how can I adapt that for what I do? And the idea is not to copy what your competitors are doing or copy what someone else is doing in the industry, but what can you learn from that and what is it about that? That's different, because what we don't want to do is be a clone of someone else, because then there's no perceived difference between you and them. So, looking around you, for instance, when you're a customer, I did a presentation the other day about reducing the friction in your sales process and I started by just telling stories about when I was a customer, just things that companies did that just added friction to the process.

Alan Berg: 19:06

Like I have a car, I have an Audi and I bought it used, so I didn't have the service manual. My mechanic said, hey, you should change the spark plugs. I was like, is that the time? So I looked in the glove box there was no schedule in there. I went to the Audi website okay, put in your VIN number, great. And then I go to get the service manual and it said put in your VIN number. Like I did that, like I did that to register and log in. And then I got to the next step and guess what it asked me.

Alan Berg: 19:33

VIN number, put in your VIN number, like, really, three times. I'm already logged in, like don't you know my VIN number here? And then you have the opposite of that, where they make it so easy for you. And we could talk about Amazon and all the things that they do by now and all things like that that make it easy for us, but are we paying attention to that, right?

Alan Berg: 19:53

So I went through this whole list of things that frustrate me or that I don't like, like, do you like paying a credit card fee when you use a credit card? No, okay, I have an Apple watch and an iPhone and I love paying with Apple Pay. Right, paying with my watch or stuff like that. Well, big companies like Walmart, home Depot, lowe's they don't have tap. Like, you can't tap your credit card, you can't use Apple Pay. I'm thinking really, like, these are big companies You're not talking about. You know the local store Actually, the local store I'm more likely to be able to tap than I am at those big stores.

Alan Berg: 20:28

Well, that's frustrating, especially the time when I ran out of the house without my wallet and run over to Home Depot for the fifth time. If you do any home improvements, you know what that's like for the fifth time and I don't have my wallet and I can't pay for this thing that I need because I can't pay with my phone, I can't pay with my watch, which you know I could do elsewhere. But then I turned it around and said how many of these things that I just said and I went through a whole bunch of things how many of these things that I said are you doing to your customers? How many decisions did you make in your business? Because it's easier for you. That don't make it easier for them. Right?

Alan Berg: 21:05

I just did my taxes and I will complain to my accountant once again. They send a tax organizer which has all what you did last year or this is this year, and I have to print it and handwrite it and scan it and upload it. Now, fortunately, I have all that technology, but really I can't just type this number Like you're gonna rely on my handwriting for this stuff here. That's frustrating. Now, I love the accountant, so I go through it. It's only once a year that I have to do it. But really why do I have to go through this Now?

Alan Berg: 21:39

I take for granted everybody's got a printer, because I have four printers sitting next to me here, I realized a while back that my two millennial sons, they don't have printers. My son who's engaged, he doesn't have a printer. His fiance doesn't have a printer. My other son and his partner, they don't have printers. So are you asking any of your couples, any of your customers, whether they're corporate or not, to print something out, handwrite it, sign it, scan it, send it back to you in 2024? Why are you doing that?

Jared Judge: 22:09

Right, and that's a really great point, Like a broader point would be are you asking people for feedback on the way you conduct your business? I once discovered this website called user testingcom, where you could hire a couple of random people to perform a task, whatever you want them to do, and they will record themselves on Zoom or video of them going through your website, submitting an inquiry form, interacting with your salespeople, and you'll hear all the embarrassing details of this is where they got stuck. Oh man, I'm just. It's very eye-opening.

Alan Berg: 22:47

I don't know if you've ever I was gonna say you look pained.

Jared Judge: 22:50

Just relating that my face definitely got redder because it is a painful experience. I've done it, obviously, yes, but like it is painful, but that's the way to grow.

Alan Berg: 23:00

Right, we can't see things through other people's eyes. I did a podcast. If you can't take a, you can't walk a mile in their shoes at least take a few steps. And that's some of those things I'm researching for a presentation I'm doing next week. One of the few that I do outside the industry it's actually for senior living facilities, because the person that owns those companies also owns wedding venues and they brought me over training for that and going through their website, clicking to read about them, to understand what their customers go through. Just like you said, I found a broken link Right, so I did a screenshot, I circled it, I sent them the link, I sent it over because they're not doing that.

Alan Berg: 23:37

They're not going to their site and clicking on every link. We're doing secret shopping. Now this group inquired with us. They have eight venues in another state not in Colorado, in another state and I said to my assistant okay, go secret shop them. Well, the only way to make an inquiry is through an email or to book a tour, so there was no form. For I'd like to ask a question Now. They do have pricing on their website. It's I don't think it's exact pricing. I think it's pretty close, like they're saying with the average or something like that. So to say, I like your pricing and packages. It's kind of on their website already. Doesn't mean it's clear, but it's on their website.

Alan Berg: 24:17

But she said I can't inquire separately for these venues without booking tours. To me that's a friction point. If somebody just wants to ask you something, I don't know, is it handicap compatible? Did you have, I don't know whatever. Do you have valet parking? Can you handle? You know, seliak, friendly meals or whatever it is. The only way to do that is to send an email and you're sending it to the general inbox. There's eight different venues and you can't say this one, I want to send an email to that one. Well, I'm sure they don't think they're adding friction because it's easier for them if people would just book tours, right, right, that's whatever venue wants. What they don't realize is the inquiries they may not be getting, because people don't want to book a tour and you know there really isn't another easy way to do that and they'll say well, here's my phone number, here's my email, that's easy. Yeah, you know what Contact forms are easier for people.

Alan Berg: 25:10

They guide them, they make it easier. I have a short contact form on every page of my website on the side and then a contact page which the spammers use. The ones on the side of the page the real people use. No joke, jared 98 out of 100 inquiries through my actual contact page for somebody trying to sell me something or spam. The ones on the side of the page almost never are spam because the spammers are looking for your contact page, they're not looking for a form on a page. So that was a way actually cut down on the spam and I can tell when it comes in and it says contact form it's gonna be. What was the one today? Cleaning services. I don't know if I needed cleaning services.

Jared Judge: 25:52

Yeah, I got the same one. I was like you don't want to clean my apartment.

Alan Berg: 25:57

Right. So again, are we walking a mile in their shoes? Are we understanding what their journey is like? It's hard when you have the curse of knowledge If you've been doing this for months, weeks, years, decades to know what it's like for someone that has never done this, right To take that step and to say again, go back to that Zemout.

Alan Berg: 26:17

The zero moment of truth when somebody says, okay, we're planning a fill in the blank Graduation party, we're planning a corporate event, we're planning a fundraiser, we're planning a mitzvah, keen, say, a wedding, whatever it is, we need stuff. If they've done it before, great, they know where to start. If they've never done it before, what do we do? What do we do? And then, what do we need? And it's not as confusing for us as it is for them, because think about just a venue. Are you renting four walls? Does it come with tables and chairs? Do I have to hire a caterer? Do I have to use your caterer? Is it preferred list of caterers? And then, when we get into catering, is it's buffet or stations are plated right? And then, what about the bar? Do I have to bring in my own bartender? Can I buy my liquor or not?

Alan Berg: 27:02

We take for granted that oh yeah, we know how to do this. But they don't. And I think a lot of people in the industry, if they've turned the table, like, how many people do we know that? Then they get engaged and then they have to plan their wedding, maybe out of state, right? So it's not the friends that they know, it's not all their connections that they have, and I hear this all the time. I just heard this from someone in Connecticut getting married into Jersey. She's like I found this florist I loved, I reached out and she didn't get back to me. So she reached out again. The customer reached out again, not the customer's job. The customer reached out again and the florist was like, oh yeah, we're really busy with events right now. I don't care, I want information for my wedding. Right, that's what she's thinking.

Jared Judge: 27:45

Yeah, exactly what I'm hearing from you is we truly have to embrace being the expert that guides these people. Right, like your book Shut Up and Sell More Stuff. Or what was the newest book, which we haven't even talked about, which is Stop Selling and Help your Customers Buy Weddings and Events? Right, we just have to help them and be their expert. I know so many people who are just unwilling to be that expert. They're just like my services should just sell themselves, but they don't.

Alan Berg: 28:13

Well, you hear it a lot photographers. Well, you know, if they love my work, they'll hire me. You know what? There's a lot of quality photographers out there that do really, really good work. But what's lacking on most photographers' websites? And I've consulted, I do website reviews, I've consulted on many photographers.

Alan Berg: 28:32

They all kind of look the same and when I don't take this the wrong way but they can't tell the difference between your pictures and the next photographer because their eye is different than yours. I did this the other day in a workshop in Las Vegas. There was a photographer and I said, okay, so you use Canon or Nikon or Sony or what he goes, I use Sony. I said, right, and nobody cares. And everybody laughed and he's like right, I said because they care if the pictures are beautiful. But see, when he looks at a picture of another photographer, he's looking at the use of light and shadow and composition and all those things. And he might say, hey, what lens was that and what were the settings on that lens and all that kind of stuff. And somebody else looks at that picture and goes I don't know if I choose those flowers, right, right, because they're looking at that wedding, not looking and critiquing the photography. Right, it's an emotion. I like the photography. I don't why. I don't know that picture speaks to me or it doesn't, but I wouldn't wear that dress, oh. Or that dress is beautiful, or you know that venue, where was that? And they're thinking about that and he's thinking about but what about my use of shadow? Right.

Alan Berg: 29:41

And the other thing is, you're going to spend an awful lot of time with your photographer, from before the wedding to getting ready, through the ceremony, through the cocktails, through the reception, through, you know, whenever the photographer leaves, whatever point that is. You also want to like them, right, you want to have a connection with them and this person pointing their camera at you and you want to be smiling genuinely and not thinking this person's a jerk, right, and this is part of that, that, that intangible, that they don't think about, they'll. If they get it wrong, they will know. And if they get it right and this is why the presentation I could be doing at the evening meeting about your branding versus your brand, your brand is in your reviews. All right, that's the short story. I'll tell you that. And when you read photographer reviews, you read them talking about the photographer, not just the photography. When you read band reviews or DJ reviews or venue reviews, right, or officiant reviews or whatever, you read them talking about people and you talk about experiences. And I'm going to talk about the experience from that Zemot, that first moment that they have any idea that they need what you do, till when their first exposure to you through, when they have conversations with you, till they book you, till the wedding and after, till the corporate event, the holiday party, whatever you know, it's all experiential, right, and that's what it is.

Alan Berg: 31:02

We had an HVAC unit put in our bedroom, made our house into an extra zone, so we didn't have to cool the whole house to cool the bedroom. And the company we went with they were all. They couldn't tell me the equipment was better because three companies came and handed me the same brochure, right, the same Fujitsu brochure circled, the same 15,000 BTU unit. You can't tell me yours is better than the next one, because they're all the same. Yeah, but only one company followed up. And then when I asked them a question, they responded right away. And if I texted or if I emailed or if I called right away, well, who did I go with? That company, right, and then when we needed something else done. I was going to reach out to different companies. I said let me go to them first.

Alan Berg: 31:42

And when push came to shove it at the end, I said you know what? I really don't want to shop around. And I went back and this little sales thing as a customer that I do, we all want to know we got the best price and we all want to know that customer won't get a better price. And I say never fault somebody for asking for a better price. You don't have to give it, right? I just had somebody asked me that the other day and I gave him wording for that. So I went back to the guy and I said listen, there's a lot of companies around here that can do this. I really don't want to shop around. What can you do to have me not shop around? And he came back and he did something for me. Now he didn't have to kind of want to go with him anyway, right, and I probably would have gone with him anyway, because then I know that I got the best price. Well, instead I got $300 off. So there you go, and the idea is that company has already proven to me that they're responsive, they're reliable.

Alan Berg: 32:36

The workman that came and did the work, followed through for the person that made the sale, because that's often in our business as well. Right, the person selling you that venue isn't the person cooking your food, right, well, maybe sometimes, but rarely is that the case. And sometimes, if the entertainment company, the person that books, may not be the person doing the entertainment, and so forth. So we have brands that have feelings, brands that have voices. Right, like, the target's voice is different than Macy's and Taco Bell's voice is different than Panera, right, so brands have voices.

Alan Berg: 33:08

Do you know your brand's voice? Does that come through in your communication? Too often I see the communication that just seems stiff, like your ninth grade English teachers looking over your shoulder, going Jared, that's not proper grammar, that's not how we speak and you're like right, that's not how I speak. Exactly, this is how I speak and therefore that's how I write, whether it's a text or an email or whatever on my website. This is how I write. Or does it sound like the SEO people? You know those websites with the SEO people were there first.

Jared Judge: 33:38

Yes, looking for a wedding band near you.

Alan Berg: 33:41

Right, if you're looking for a Denver wedding band, then you need a band in Denver that does weddings, because wedding bands in Denver exactly, it's like Rain man, you know, definitely, definitely, definitely needs to say that. So, getting out of your head and looking at your own business the way other people do and this is actually a good way to do this is to pick a buddy and go look at their site, go look at their marketing, go look at their things preferably some of where you've never seen their stuff and then have them do like you said with that testing. Have them go look at your stuff and go like I know you, but this doesn't look like you, or this doesn't feel like you, or this doesn't sound like you, and then, when you do what you said, which is, you know, look at the competitors, look and see what they're doing. You know, just because they're doing it doesn't mean it's working Right and it doesn't mean it's right for your business and your brand and those things.

Alan Berg: 34:32

I see a lot of things that other speakers and consultants and trainers do that I won't do. Maybe it works for them, I don't know. For instance, the picture on my homepage what do you typically see with a speaker. There's the speaker up on stage. Now mine is me on stage but shot from behind me so that the faces or the audience faces, not mine Now you can tell that it's me. If you've seen me, I'm bald and there I am, okay, great, and it's kind of a three quarter shot so you can still see that it's me, but it's me on stage because of those people. I didn't need to be there if those people weren't coming very much. Like you know, the videographer doesn't need to be there if there was no event, the photographer doesn't need to be there. If there's no offense, the officiant doesn't need to be there.

Alan Berg: 35:18

And for most of the events that we do, they're happy occasions, right, other than you know, maybe celebrations of life, which is the happy, sad one, right, they're happy occasions. So people are bringing us in because they want to. It's totally discretionary money. There's no law in this country or actually I've spoken in 14 countries there's no law in anywhere in the world that says you have to throw a party when you get married or when your kid turns 13 or 16 or 15 or whatever.

Alan Berg: 35:45

There's no law that says a company has to have a holiday party or a customer appreciation event or that you know charities have to throw fundraisers. There's no law yes, they have to raise money, but there's no law that says they have to do it. They could just keep asking for money, right, like that's the other stuff you get in your inbox, right? All the people asking for money. So when we're brought in as the event industry, it's almost always a happy occasion and it's discretionary, which means people are doing this because they want to. What are the kind of results that we can bring them? So they'll say at the end, that was worth every penny, even when it's more than they wanted to spend, which most of the time it is right, and you know why that is Jared. What do you think?

Jared Judge: 36:32

Let me think about that. Why so?

Alan Berg: 36:33

the question is why do people spend more than they originally intend?

Jared Judge: 36:39

because the person that they were speaking to created the desire for it.

Alan Berg: 36:44

Because the results they want cost more than the budget they set.

Jared Judge: 36:48

There you go.

Alan Berg: 36:49

But when they set the budget, they didn't know that. Because, especially if they've never done it before, right, what does fill in the blank cost if you've never bought it before? You don't know? It's called framing. We frame current decisions from past experience. So if you were going to go buy a new, you're a musician yourself. Yep, what's your main interest, violinist? Okay, you're going to go buy a new violin. You have an idea what violins cost, right, and you might say, okay, inflation, or it's been a while, or I want something that has, you know, different features than the one before. I want one of those clear ones that I can, you know, light up with different colors or whatever it is right. You're going to say, okay, I have an idea. Now what if you've never done that? What if you, as a violinist, said, okay, I'm going to go buy a baritone saxophone.

Jared Judge: 37:40

Yeah, I'd be completely guessing.

Alan Berg: 37:42

Right Now, when we guess we got to try to use some information we might have and say, okay, instruments, there we go. Right, and we're probably going to be wrong because we didn't have anything to base it on. Okay, so now you put yourself in the shoes of someone planning an event. What does catering cost? Well, technically it goes from I'm not going to say free, because if you do it yourself, it's the cost of the food till you know, whatever it's like. What is eating out cost? Right, I can go to the what is it? The Brown Palace? Or I can go to the Buckhorn Exchange, or I can go to Taco Bell. Right, Exactly Right. So this range.

Alan Berg: 38:22

They come up with a number and say, okay, this feels about, right, this is what my son and his fiance are going through right now. I don't know what their budget is, right, they did say that they would like to have a band, but it's probably going to bust their budget, which is why we just told them that we're going to pay for the band, because my parents did that for our wedding and you know, this saves them money for other stuff. So they're going to get what they want, but not in their budget, right? So their budget is not going to allow for that, Okay, well, now they're going to be able to get it.

Alan Berg: 38:52

Everything else, I don't know what their budget is for venue, for catering, for those things, right, that's up to them to decide. And if we decide to help anymore, that's up to us, right? And I told my wife. I said we're not going to tell them what we're going to do until they figure out what they want, right? A friend of mine, when his son got engaged, he said I want to help. Do I just say that I'll pay a third because it was the bride's parents? He's the father of the groom, the bride's parents and then the couple paying. I said do you want to be a blank check?

Jared Judge: 39:21

Exactly.

Alan Berg: 39:22

If you want to be a blank check, knock yourself out. I said what I would do is either pay for certain services or write them a check for whatever you feel comfortable. Let them do what they want. If it happens to be half, great, and if it's 10%, fine. That's up to them to decide what they want.

Alan Berg: 39:37

But, according to the knot, couples go over their wedding budgets by well the ones that do, which is over half of them by 30 to 50%. And the way I say that is it's because they picked a number out of thin air and then they said these are the services we want. So this is the venue, this is the caterer, this is the photographer, the videographer, the music, the flowers, the clothing, the jewelry, the efficient, the invitations, the transportation. The average wedding has 12 to 14 services, right? So all of these things. That's not including the honeymoon. Then we got the honeymoon on top of that. And when you pick that number out, I could use any of the tools online and it says okay, what's your budget? Boom, you put the number and it says okay, which of these services do you want? Most couples are like all of them, I want all of them. And then you wonder why it says you only have X for whatever that service is, because the money only goes so far if you divide it by all those things.

Alan Berg: 40:30

So our job is not to sell to someone's budget. Our job is to find out the results that they want, or present them with the results they didn't even know they could have, and then tell them how much it will cost to get to those results and let them decide if they want to do that or not. That's what I call top down selling. We sell to the results, not to the budget, right? Too many people sell from the bottom up, which is they try to sell low service and then more and more and more and more, and then you run into decision fatigue and decision paralysis. And then people if you hear this a lot, you've given us so much to think about. Right, if you hear that a lot, you're gonna hear it once in a while, but if you hear it a lot, it's your fault because you have given them too much to think about as opposed to just enough to say Jared, I want you and your team to come. I want you, I want the experience that you're gonna do. I did a podcast. Are your results really better or are they just different?

Alan Berg: 41:25

And a lot of people in our industry would like to say that our results are better. And I'll say, well, we'll never know, because that event is only gonna happen once, no matter what the event is Now, if it's a corporation or a fundraiser or a school, they might have other events, but that particular event is only gonna happen once. So that wedding, that mitzvah, that kinsay, that birthday party, that graduation, whatever it is. So how will we know if your results were better if there was nobody else doing what you did? So there was no other musicians, there was no other aficiant, there was no other caterer. It was only at that one venue.

Alan Berg: 41:57

Unless we go to the sci-fi world, right, if we all of a sudden, you know, have parallel universes with two of the same event going on and the only thing different was you versus somebody that does something like you. Maybe then we could tell which would better. But otherwise it's their perception that your results will be better and they want your results and therefore they have to pay your price. And all those companies that are getting higher dollars, it's people perceive that the results they're gonna get are the ones they want, because they will be better than somebody else's, but it has to be a perception, because it can never be a reality.

Jared Judge: 42:32

Right, and that right there is one of the biggest arguments for becoming better at sales, because it doesn't matter how good your product is if nobody has a chance to experience it.

Alan Berg: 42:42

Right, and you know the best thing is if someone has experienced what you do, then they can say okay, I know what it's like to have you fill in the blank to eat your catering, to be at your venue, to see you officiate a wedding right, to get your invitation in the mail. I know what that's like. But for a lot of us it's just selling that idea. And that comes back to the asking better questions to help them buy. So it wasn't my first book, but my first sales book stop shut up and sell more weddings and events. That book was to teach you to stop talking and listen. And I said if I ever write another book, it's gonna be sales book. It's gonna be called Stop Selling and Help them Buy. And the reason is you don't need to sell somebody who is already a buyer. You're not trying to convince them to buy services like yours. You're trying to convince them that yours are the services and results that they want. But they're already a buyer.

Alan Berg: 43:37

In a previous life, over 30 years ago, I was in the car business and people don't walk into a car dealership because they need bread, right, they walk into a car dealership because they either need today or will need or thinking about at some point that they want a car. And what I learned is don't sell them the car they sat in because, let's face it, if it's a red convertible in the middle of the showroom floor, most of us are gonna go sit in it and have a moment. And then you find out that in my case I was selling mini vans and stuff like that, that baby number four is on the way and that red convertible isn't happening for at least 18 years, right? So stop trying to sell them that and just ask better questions what did you come looking for today? How can I? What is it that I can help you find? Like, when you walk in a store and somebody says can I help you? That's a bad question. What can I help you find is a better question.

Alan Berg: 44:32

I travel a lot. I mean a lot. I think I drove 5,000 miles last year, but I flew 100,000. So I'm in hotels, a lot of restaurants, and I always get a kick when I walk into a hotel dragging two suitcases behind me, walk up to the front desk and the person says how can I help you? You know I need a sandwich, right? Like, how do you think you can help me. Now if they say checking in, right, it's still pretty obvious, but that's a better question. And it's like, how can I help you? What do you think here Right now, if I walk in with no bags, walk up to the desk, maybe that's a better question. But seriously, just walked in from outside, clearly out of breath, dragging these suitcases behind me, and you say, how can I help you?

Alan Berg: 45:20

That, to me, is not good customer service, but happens all the time. If you think about it, people that do that, you know, ask you the wrong question. That will not get you closer to the right information or the right answer. Right, it happens to us all the time. Well, let's turn ourselves around again. Are we doing that to customers?

Alan Berg: 45:40

When we were clearing out my dad's apartment after he passed, we found two film canisters and we couldn't tell if they had been exposed or not, cause it was this film called APS, which doesn't have the little leader out when it's not exposed, so it puts it out and back. And got really excited, like, maybe there's pictures on here right From years ago. Where do you even get it developed anymore, right? So we go to CVS and they have film. Great, drop it off, okay, and I said so how long does this take? And the young lady goes I don't know, and that was it. She didn't say anything else. I'm thinking, not, I don't know, let me go find out. Like just, I don't know, right, but that again that happens to us as businesses. Are we doing things like that to our customers or are we trying to get to the root? There's a great book called the Challenger Sale, where you challenge someone on the results that they're asking for, with results that they couldn't have imagined.

Alan Berg: 46:38

And the way I explained it very simply is people can't ask for what they don't know exists. That's true. If you've seen it, you've heard about it, whatever, what was Steve Jobs so good at was coming up with these things that we couldn't imagine and now can't live without, right. I remember the first iPad. I was like who needs that? I think I'm on my fifth or sixth right, who needs that? I'm on my fifth or sixth Apple Watch, the old Dick Tracy wrist radio.

Alan Berg: 47:08

From there you go from way, way back. What was that? In the 30s or 40s or whatever, they perceived that if they're Star Trek, think about all the things on Star Trek that were props. The flip phone right, the communicator became the flip phone. They don't have it yet. But what was the Doctor Bones? Right, mccoy, he had that thing that you could just go over you and tell you what was wrong with you. Oh yeah, I heard that that was actually a salt shaker that they turned into this thing that he did there. But all these things, but your customers can't ask for what they don't know exists, right. So, like what you do with violin, if someone's vision of a violinist is classical music, right, classical, baroque, whatever it is, they can't imagine you doing contemporary music.

Alan Berg: 47:53

I remember sitting in a where are we? We were in a B&B in South Carolina, hilton Head, south Carolina, having afternoon tea. It was very nice afternoon years ago and listening to the music and it was a string quartet and I said that's the Rolling Stones, that's sympathy for the devil. It was the Hampton string quartet and it was the first time I'd ever heard that. To me, string quartets were Ina Klana, nock music. String quartets were classical music. And I'm hearing this and it blew my mind because I know that song I've never heard it played like that. Okay, now, expanded mind. Now what else can I hear like that? What other songs can I hear like that what would it sound like if they did the doors? If they did, you know whatever? And now you can't unknow that. That's the curse of knowledge. You can't unknow that your customers don't have the curse of knowledge because they don't have that experience.

Jared Judge: 48:48

Exactly Reminds me. I do a lot of sales consultations for my own services and oftentimes I'll ask, like what's your dream wedding? What specifically with the music? What are you imagining? And they'll describe to me very simply we're just looking for background music while our guests are seated and walking down the aisle and like that's all Really. Then I paint this picture, I tell them the story, that oftentimes when I tell the story, if the mom of the bride's on the call she'll start crying. And then I've expanded their mind. Like music is no longer just background, it is the emotional intensity of your moment, catered to the exact occasion.

Alan Berg: 49:29

Music is memory, Food is memory, Vision is smells they're all memory. We all have that. When somebody says, like, what song was playing when? Right? And then you go back to that memory, and these are. Every decision we make is emotionally involved. People that have the part of their brain that's damaged that controls emotion can't make basic decisions like what to wear and what to eat, Even when you think these are not emotional decisions. Every decision we make is emotional.

Alan Berg: 50:00

So what you're trying to do again is not sell your services, Because if you sell your services, somebody sells them cheaper. It's always gonna be the case. Or, as I like to say, when you were new in business, it was you that sold the cheaper right, and now you don't right, and that's the case with all of us. I charge, I think, five times what I did in 2011 or 12 when I started with my business, when I left the knot and the idea of well, people won't pay that. Well, they'll pay that if you believe in the results that you provide and the value, and if you're talking to the right customers, because there were always people that can't afford what you do, and if you raise your price, they still can't afford what you do. But the people that are paying your price might pay more. And how do you know? Raise your price and then you'll find out. And that's what I like to play that game with my customers and my audience as well is to challenge them and prove to them that everybody in the room can raise their price. And there are people like no, no, no, I can't raise my price. So I was like you can, you can, I'll prove it to you, I'll prove it to you. The question is how much. It's not whether you can raise it. Yeah, for sure it's how much. But you have to believe it, right? You have to be able to say that.

Alan Berg: 51:10

One of the things I'm asked most often when I do sales training is can you teach my people not to sell with their own wallet? It's not your money, it's their money, right? And if you let the customer buy your results with their wallet, people will pay for things that you personally wouldn't pay for, right? I remember doing a mastermind in Richmond, Virginia, and this high-end decor designer sitting next to me. She goes I wouldn't pay my prices. I was like what she said I would never hire somebody to do what I do because I can do it. So I can't imagine ever paying this kind of money to do something like that. I said do your customers have problems paying your price? She goes oh no, not at all. Right, that's the point. It's not her money, it's their money.

Alan Berg: 51:56

Just go to a parking lot. What do you see? You see cheap beat up cars and you see brand new, high-end cars. Somebody paid and let them decide what they wanna do. You don't have to drive a new Ferrari to sell someone one, or drive a Rolls Royce to sell someone, or live in a $5 million house to sell someone a $5 million house. It's their money. They get to decide. And, by the way, that realtor selling the $5 million house doesn't apologize and go oh Jared, it's $5 million. They say it's only $5 million, there's only one like this. Should we get that written up now?

Jared Judge: 52:30

Yeah, it all stems from belief, which this is kind of the. Unfortunately, we're running out of time for this podcast. I'm having so much fun. I have learned a lot. It's just really nice to dive deep into these concepts, which it's not something that we talk about enough, and I really appreciate it. I feel like we're just scratching the surface of what you can share your wealth of knowledge and expertise. I wanted to dive deeper into websites. We don't have time for that, but I imagine we'll touch on that at the April 9th meeting at the Gaylord Rockies Convention Center. Is that correct?

Alan Berg: 53:07

Absolutely. And you just have to think to yourself whatever the investment is, if you don't come, you won't learn anything. Nothing will change. You'll keep doing what you're doing and whatever is your biggest challenge right now, whatever that is closing more sales, converting leads, getting people to phone calls and tours, getting ghosted less whatever If you lose one sale because you didn't come and learn something right, that's gonna cost you more than whatever the ticket is.

Alan Berg: 53:36

So it's one day, it's April 9th. What is that? A Tuesday? It's in the afternoon, and then stick around for the evening for the branding one in the evening. There you could spend more time on social media or you could come and learn something that's gonna help your business. And those are the skills that just keep building and keep growing with you, where, if you learn how to close one more sale, that's gonna turn into you closing another one and another one and another one. I'll leave you with the one last story. Yesterday, unsolicited, it got reached out to me that had done something just like this, that had done a class like this with me years ago, and he said I was just thinking about you. Today again, I don't know why, maybe saw something on social. Whatever, he said, I just wanted to reach out and let you know that that was the best investment that I ever made, and this year we're gonna hit our annual sales goal in the first quarter.

Jared Judge: 54:27

It's amazing.

Alan Berg: 54:28

Right Now. I didn't do that. I gave him tools to do that and then he did that. We can't make you come to this event, but if you come to this event and you don't hear at least one idea that you can use right away, you aren't paying attention. I mean, that's what it is. There's gonna be so much information there, besides the people around you, right, besides the value of networking and all that. So I'm with you, jared. I wish we had more time, because this is just so much fun, as you can tell. I think you and I could do this all day. Oh, absolutely.

Jared Judge: 54:57

Well, thank you so much for being on this episode. For our listeners who are interested in coming and hearing Alan for a lot longer than this one hour episode, go to nasedenvercom. That's N-A-C-E stands for National Association for Catering and Events, nasedenvercom. Right on the homepage you'll see the April 9th event. You can get your tickets before they sell out, which I am sure they will, and I just can't wait to meet you in person. So thank you so much, alan.

Alan Berg: 55:23

Maybe we can jam one of them out there.

Jared Judge: 55:26

That'd be awesome. Bring your keyboard.

Alan Berg: 55:28

I got one here for you there we go there we go, looking forward to it. Thanks, jared.

Jared Judge: 55:31

Likewise Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Denver Nace podcast. See you on April 9th.