34. Your focus on leads is hurting your bookings

In this episode, we explore a common pitfall for many wedding vendors: the relentless chase for more leads. We challenge the traditional notion that more leads are the key to growing your business and examine why this focus might be holding you back. With real-life examples and insights, learn why the quality of inquiries matters significantly more than quantity and how a strategic approach to bookings can transform your business efficiency.

We'll discuss how prioritizing your sales process and conversion rate can free up crucial time that could be better spent on your craft, clients, and family. See why investing in the right systems now can pay dividends by drastically reducing admin hours and improving client alignment without sacrificing your precious time or resorting to underpricing. Navigate common issues like ghosting, price shoppers, and the pressure of endless marketing with renewed clarity and strategy.

For more in-depth guidance, check out the free masterclass that breaks down my simple 2-step approach that booked 5 weddings in just 4 weeks, without chasing leads or discounting: https://the-ewings.com/otfb.

Successful Creatives make the world brighter. Follow @theewingsstudio on instagram for weekly tips and tricks to uplevel your bookings and increase profits so that you can accomplish all of the goals on your heart.

Transcript

 Ooh, today's episode is a good one because we're talking about leads and why your focus on more leads is actually the demise of your business. If you feel like you're constantly called to do more marketing, like you constantly are chasing leads, buying marketing programs, and you're spending money on ads, or you just feel like you're spinning your wheels trying to get more leads because the leads that you're getting aren't converting, or maybe they're price shoppers Or they're not the clients that you want, and you kind of are like banging your head against the wall, not sure what to do.

Then I'm going to challenge you today because Your focus on more leads could be the thing that's actually hurting your business.

This episode idea came about because I was having a really good chat with a photographer in the DMs on Instagram. If you're not following me yet over there, head to the Ewing's studio and we can connect and be friends on Instagram. But I was having this chat with a photographer and she was telling me that she's about 50 percent booked to For next year, which is great.

That's a great place to be, but she had a challenge. She had lowered her prices to get there. So I think this is a strategy that a lot of people instilled into their business for 2024 was the market got tough. People felt like there was a ton of price shopping. And so the solution, what do you do when the market gets hard and people get more press price sensitive, you lowered your prices, right?

Um, and so she did what a lot of people think is the right move. So no shade there. She took an action in order to get bookings, right? And while it might not be the most effective action, she took an action and it had results for her. Because really the worst thing that you can do for your business is take no action at all.

Struggle and just continue to struggle and not do anything about it. But now she has to make up the revenue with the second half of her bookings. And so she's looking to Raise her average booking price by about 2, 000. Okay. So that is the challenge. And so she's looking for the strategy to fill the rest of her calendar at the price point that she really wants to be at.

So how does she get there? When it comes to increasing bookings in your business, there are two basic strategies. The first one is. More leads, which is what I've been talking about sort of from the beginning here. And I'm going to dig into that and what that looks like. And second strategy to increase bookings is to focus on your conversion rate and to focus on increasing and improving your conversion rate.

And so when I say conversion, I mean, the number of inquiries who are booking consultations, scheduling consultations, and then the number of consultations who are turning into bookings. But it's also November and 2025 is really closing in on us. So she's got to figure this out fast. November through February is peak proposal season.

There are about 30, 37 percent or about one third of couples get engaged in this small window, basically holidays to Valentine's day. And that is a global statistic. So the knot worldwide surveyed more than 20, 000 couples. Across 14 different countries. That's everything from the U. S. to Argentina to India to Italy to Mexico.

Portugal, all kinds of places, Canada, France. And the study revealed that that window is huge. And also that December is the overwhelmingly most popular month to propose worldwide. So if you're in the wedding business right now, November, the tail end of the year. Is really the time to get your systems in alignment so that you can be ready for the next wave of inquiries.

Okay. So when we're looking at two strategies to increase your bookings, the first one I mentioned was more leads. The second one was better conversion. Let's dive into more leads because this is the one that so many people see as the obvious solution. More leads equals more bookings, right? So how do we get more leads?

A doing more of what you're currently doing. So if you've got an effective strategy that is bringing in leads right now, you just amp that up. If it's something that you're paying for, maybe you boost your spend if it's ads, or if you're doing like, you know, a wedding site listing, maybe you up level to the higher tier.

If you're doing things organically that aren't costing you money, but maybe cost you time, you lean into that. So if it's posting to Instagram, if Instagram is where you get most of your inquiries, then maybe you do double the amount of posts. If it's networking, maybe you go to more networking events, whatever you've been doing that is working.

Just, it makes sense that if you do more of that, then you're going to get more leads. The second strategy is to add new strategies, right? So if you're already having success with referrals and SEO, for example, but you want more inquiries, then maybe you try Google Ads, or maybe this is when you step into Instagram, or join that networking group.

You add on more strategies. Now more leads requires two things. And I sort of just painted the picture when I was taking you through those two scenarios. It requires money. So whether that be a new course purchase to teach you a new marketing skill set, whether it be. Money for ads, or maybe you're joining a Reels membership to help you post more on Instagram.

More leads generally cost more money in some level of investment there. And then time. So time to implement that strategy. Again, posting to social, prepping for a wedding show, um, learning new skill set, learning ads. So, Let's say that this is the route that she decides to go and she did tell me when we were chatting that She has to date spent a lot of money on different courses and programs And so we were actually talking specifically about the super attractor Academy trying to see if this is gonna be the right fit for her So I was answering some questions in there and I know from experience The feeling when you've invested in something and then you see something else come across your desk and you think this could be it, or is it, or is it just going to be a waste of money like XYZ, right?

So I'm always happy to have conversations with anybody in the DMs because I never want them to sign up for my program unless they know it is the most perfect fit for their needs. Okay, so that's, that's how we got our start. And she was weighing between Super Attractor Academy or another program that I have that's all about marketing.

Okay. More leads requires more money in more time. It just, it just does. Now let's say she effectively gets that beautiful wave of new inquiries that she was hoping for. Okay. Let's say that over the next week, she gets 20 new inquiries of those 20 inquiries. She goes through her, you know, sending more information, trying to get consultations on the books with these people and four of them book a consultation.

So she's psyched, right? Like she has four new consultations in the next week. And then of those consultations, 25 percent of them book. Yay. Now she has a booking. So the strategy of increasing leads to get more bookings works. Right. And the numbers that I'm using are numbers that seem to be pretty standard within the industry where 20 percent of inquiries actually book a consultation.

So like. Anywhere from 20 to 25 percent typically convert from just being an inquiry to being a consultation, one out of four. Okay. And then from there, if 25 percent of them book, which is a very low conversion rate, but actually I feel like that's probably a lot higher than what a lot of people are getting, then you have a booking.

So it takes 20 inquiries. Now, if you are looking to book 20 weddings, if we do the quick math, 20 weddings times 20 inquiries, that means that you need 400 inquiries a year in order to book 20 weddings based on those conversion rates, 20 percent of inquiries, book a consult 25 percent of consults book their wedding.

Okay. 400 inquiries are required to book 20 weddings. That's it. That's that's crazy. That's just I think of the amount of time. I would have to be in my inbox and I just cringe. Okay. So while we're on the math topic, let's look at a more reasonable number. Instead of saying 400 increase, let's take a look at it.

150 inquiries. Okay. So that's like one new inquiry, roughly every other day. And using the same math there, 20 percent of those inquiries schedule a consultation that gives us 30 consultations throughout the year. That feels like a pretty good number, doesn't it? And then let's say that you have a higher than average booking rate.

So you're actually booking about 33%. So one out of three people book. Like I said, really what I'm hearing in the industry is that most people are booking like 20 to 25 percent or less of their consultations. But in this instance, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're booking 1 out of 3 consultations.

So that means your 150 inquiries turned into 30 consultations, which turned into 10 bookings. Okay. Now, when we think about the amount of time that it takes to get those 10 bookings, let's just say that every inquiry that you, that you get takes you about 15 minutes or so to customize your response email back to them.

Okay. And then let's assume that you send each inquiry to emails. Now this is again probably on the low end because we all know that if you don't have an efficient process like inquiry handling process, then you're probably spending a ton of time in your inbox, right? So that's not including any additional back and forth correspondence that you know ends up being way more like five minutes here answering a quick question, 10 minutes here trying to find a time on your calendar.

Um, all that good stuff. So if you send just two emails per inquiry at 150 inquiries, that is 75 hours of emailing. Okay? That's almost two full weeks of your year that you're in your inbox simply responding to inquiries. Then we'll assume about an hour to an hour and a half per consultation. So you've had 30 consultations at an hour and a half per consultation.

Hopefully you're not going an hour and a half, but if you are, I've had some people in the super attractor Academy who were having two plus hour consultations. You can get it done in 30 minutes. Once you, once you, you know, really get dialed in, but just for sake of our math here, an hour and a half per consultation puts you at a total of 45 hours worth of consultations for the year.

So add your 75 hours of emails plus your 45 hours of consultations in that gives you 120 hours Of time commitment to get 10 bookings in that doesn't include the extra time for the additional marketing that you did to get to get that higher level of inquiries right a student of mine in the academy followed an ad strategy.

that had him drowning in 700 new inquiries within a span of just a couple of months. So much so that he actually hired a virtual assistant to help him field it all. And from all of that extra work, it only resulted in two new bookings and they were at discounted rates. Your time is valuable. It's the most precious resource that you have.

And so I wanted to like highlight how much The focus of more leads in more inquiries really can have on your most valuable resource or source on your time. Okay, because it is really important for you to be intentional with how you spend it. The more time that you're spending in your inbox, the less time you have doing your craft or spending time with your family or traveling or whatever lights you up, right?

So you've got to be really intentional with how you're spending your time. Now, let's look at an alternate strategy. The other way to increase your bookings. Without increasing leads is to increase your conversion rate. So instead of focusing on marketing, we're talking about sales, your sales process, which we mostly all in this industry call it our booking process, but sales system, sales process and booking process are all one in the same.

It is exactly the same thing. It's just, we put a different word on it, probably because most of us creatives are not comfortable with the idea. Of sales. We just want people to book. We don't necessarily want to have to sell them, right? So let's talk about your sales process. I'm going to give you another, uh, let's see, maybe more realistic numbers.

Okay. So let's say you get 50 inquiries and you're doing really well in terms of converting people from inquiry to consultation. So 50 percent of your inquiries schedule a consultation. And just a side note if you're not if you're if you're a higher ticket, um, like service provider, like, if you're in the wedding industry and you're a photographer or videographer or, um, a planner or florist, or you're not in the wedding industry, but you're a designer.

Brand designer, a website developer, anything like that. Then definitely if you want to book those higher paying clients, the best thing that you can do is hop on a consultation with them. Just getting, you know, in front of them, answer questions, build rapport, explain your services and how you do them and why you're different.

Okay. Side note. So 50 percent of your inquiries are scheduling a consultation. So that's 25 consultations that you've got on the books. Already you're winning right there, right? Because in the last example where we had 150 inquiries required for 30 consultations here, by increasing the number of inquiries to consultation, you've saved yourself the need for 100 leads.

Imagine how much time you would save if you didn't have to respond to 100 different leads multiple times, right? So now of your 25 consultations, Let's assume that about 90 percent of them book, okay, and I'm giving you the booking rates that I see from my students in the Super Attractor Academy that I experienced myself.

Okay, 90 percent conversion rate, and I want you to just to imagine this for you so that you can see how these numbers play out. And how this strategy that just the impact that the strategy has on your bottom line. So of those 25 consultations, 23 of them book. Now, when we break it down in the same exact way to figure out the time and money investment, the time to do those same two emails.

for your inquiries for your 50 inquiries ends up being 12 and a half hours plus then 30 minutes of consultation per because I mentioned my my consultations are about 30 minutes gives you a total of 37 and a half hours so add those two up and now you're spending 50 hours on all the emails to all of your inquiries plus the consultations versus In the original example, it was, what was it, hang on, 120 hours.

Okay. So now, because you have fewer leads that you have to service, because they are converting at a higher rate, you need fewer of them. So it requires less time from you. So you save a minimum of 82 hours by focusing on increasing your conversions. Okay. Is this making sense? Like. Just how much more efficient it is to get better at booking those leads than to keep going out and getting more and more leads.

That's like two to three weeks of your life. Every single year that you get back. Go sit by the beach. Go, you know. Do anything besides email inquiries that just ghost. Okay. Now let's look at the money, honey. And we can use some real numbers from my own business. The sales process work increasing my conversions was a huge priority for me when I got into this really gross booking slump a few years ago.

So back then my base price was 4, 600. So if you wanted to work with me as your wedding photographer, the lowest package price was 4, 600. So let's assume that I booked 10 weddings at 4, 600. That gives me a total revenue of 46, 000. And at this point in my business, most people were booking the base collection.

It was rare. If I sold my middle or top package, if I sold top package, I was thrown a party, even though back then the top package wasn't actually profitable because I was including way too much, but that's a side tangent. So. After I focused on increasing my conversions, really nailing my sales process, my booking process.

Once I knew I had a process that worked and how did I know? Well, because it started converting about a hundred percent of my right fit clients at the consultation into bookings. So once I knew it was working, once I was converting at a close to a hundred percent, I raised my prices from 4, 600 to 6, 500.

I literally did that overnight in 24 hours. I updated my price guide. I updated my website and I changed my pricing from 4, 600 to 6, 500. And I still book nearly every single right fit consultation, nearly 100%, five years later, because of the system, my price has still gone up from 6, 500, but my booking rate has maintained the same.

Booking nearly 100 percent of my consultations. So let's look at how this breaks down in our mock scenario. If I had 25 consultations, and we'll use a conservative number, we'll say not 100 percent booked. Of those 25 consultations, 23 of them decided to book, and if they only booked my base collection, that is 23 times my new price of 6, 500.

That gives me a total revenue of 149, 500. Compare that to my before example, when I was charging 4, 600 for a wedding and I was struggling to book 10, I was bringing in 46, 000 before my sales process, before I focused on increasing conversions. And then afterwards, With the same amount of time, actually less time, I was booking 149, 500 worth of business.

That's more than 103, 000 additional revenue. Plus, I needed way fewer inquiries, so that's way less time in my inbox. That's way less time, like, worrying about anybody ghosting me. Way more time with my family, way more time shooting weddings. So the question for you is when you're trying to figure out what strategy you want to, you want to go after when you're thinking about how you can increase your bookings, would you rather field 150 inquiries for 10 bookings?

Or 50 inquiries for 23, 10 weddings at 4, 600 a piece for 46, 000 in total annual revenue, or 23 weddings at 6, 500 a piece for 149, 000 in annual revenue. And you can pull back on your marketing. You don't have to, you know, have that desperate feeling of feeling like you have to take every booking because You don't know when your next right client is coming, right?

If you've ever felt that way, like, well, I'm not getting that many bookings. And this one just came across my desk and they're not the most perfect fit, but I need bookings. And so I'm going to take them. You don't have to take them. You can save your ad money. You can save your time on social media. Both. I, when I first started working with Justine, you've heard her name before.

Um, she, once she implemented her sales process, she canceled her wedding wire listing and she saved an extra 3, 000. So on top of the additional money revenue she was making because she was booking more weddings and she was booking them at a higher price point. She was also saving thousands of dollars on marketing that wasn't working.

All right, just also a side note that I just want to mention, be weary of the gurus online that dangle huge number of inquiries like, like the Matt, the photographer that I mentioned who was in the super attractor Academy, who enrolled in a program that was like, it was a Facebook ads program all about, you know, get a free engagement session and then you upsell them to your wedding.

He ended up with 700 inquiries and very, very few of them, I think he said literally like two or three converted into bookings and a lot of them just wanted the discounted engagement session. And he was, so he was spinning his wheels, shooting a ton of sessions for very little money and it was burning him out.

He was underbooked, underpaid and totally burnt out. Okay, so just be weary. I was watching this guru online who was talking about, you know, How she gets 90 inquiries in one month and to join her program so that you can get 90 inquiries in one month I just want you to remember that a higher Number of inquiries does not necessarily translate into more bookings It's sort of like, you know, the, the, the carrot that you can never reach.

Like, it just sounds really great. Well, if I'm going to get 90 inquiries, some of those are going to have to turn into bookings. Right. But we didn't even get in the lead quality. Okay. And it definitely translates into more admin time in front of your, in front of your computer, when you can save yourself so much time, so much headache.

By focusing on sales first, and then add any additional inquiries, then try any marketing strategies. But you really want to make sure that you have The back end dialed in. Otherwise, all of those inquiries are just going to waste. Right? And I don't know about you, but I would way rather deal with 50 inquiries to get 23 bookings than 150 inquiries for 10.

Now, I have some homework for you because you know I'm always about Action with inspiration, right? So your homework is to go look at your numbers. Run your numbers. If you have a CMS, it should be pretty easy to do this. So in the last six months, how many inquiries have you received? This is a question that I ask everybody when they join the Super Attractor Academy.

Because then when you can see the transformation from before and after, it's always really exciting. So start with the last six months, how many inquiries have you received? Of those inquiries, how many of them booked a consultation? And then of the consultations that you've had, how many weddings booked?

How many couples booked? And if you're not in the wedding industry, you can do this too. So then you just run it like in the last six months, how many inquiries have you received of those inquiries? How many scheduled a consultation? And of those consultations, how many booked your services with you? If you're not booking at least 80 percent of your, of your consultations right now, this is your call to focus on increasing your conversion rate.

When you do this work, it will serve you time and time again for years and years, like I mentioned, I implemented my like up leveled booking process years ago, five years ago, to be exact. And I still use the same system today. I literally this year just started updating some of the pictures because, well, it was time.

It's been five years. My work has definitely, um, you know, Become more refined, but, um, if you're not booking at least 80 percent of your consultations, focus on your sales process first, before you ever consider any additional marketing, you're going to save yourself time, you're going to save yourself money, you're going to be able to raise your prices.

And you're going to find so much more joy in your business when you're not feeling like you're constantly being coasted. When you're constantly dealing with price shoppers, when you can truly show your value in a way that resonates with those right people and has them excited to book and not only excited to book, but excited to invest more.