Facebook’s a bit salty at us
After posting a guide on making sure you and your business is prepared if and when the Facebook ban hammer falls on you, the Facebook ban hammer fell on us.
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Author: Josh Withers
If Facebook shuts your page down, are you prepared?
Your Facebook page, Instagram page, Google My Business account, your LinkedIn, and god forbid any of you have a Parler account, but they’re all not your property. Running your business on the back of those properties is like going to your local cafe and setting up shop at a table. Putting up a little sign with Married By John Citizen on it, and accepting meetings and enquiries there. It might be ok for the longest period of time (thanks for hosting me, Sisterhood Coffee), but at any time that business owner can ask you to leave and not come back.
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How is OPD different in 2021?
If you’ve read your emails from the AGD recently, or heard rumours around the ol’ celebrancy water cooler, you might be a little confused about what is happening with ongoing professional development in 2021.
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Quick way to complete the Certificate IV in Celebrancy
A friend asks me today what the quickest way is to complete the Cert IV in Celebrancy, the qualification needed to become a celebrant in Australia. Friends of my friend reckon she’d be a great celebrant and they’d like her to marry them.
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Where to focus on your celebrancy in 2021
It’s been a weird year behind us as a wedding industry. I don’t want to dwell on it...
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How to accept crypto currencies for your work
A celebrant has written in to the Celebrant Institute asking the question: “How can I, and should I, accept crypto currency for celebrancy?”
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Ultimate Guide to Creating Automation For Your Customer Journey
I recently spoke via video at the Wedding Business CEO Summit and spoke on the process of creating a customer journey. My talk was called There’s A Fraction Too Much Friction: Automation For Your Customer Journey. I believe this is an important and valuable topic for all wedding business people to get in their life, and I’m so glad I get to share it with Celebrant Institute members.
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Acknowledgement of Country in our weddings
First Australians have been marrying for thousands of years on the land we now call Australia. Terra Australis, the southern land, was home to people well before the Dutch or the British “discovered” it, so as much as Australian law requires us to identify that we the celebrants are authorised to marry people according to Australian law, common decency would see us acknowledge the truth of the land we stand on to create ceremony.
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How to get couples to book you as their celebrant
“I’ve a question about that first meeting – I’ve met a few couples, tried coming from different angles ie. Asking what they have in mind for their ceremony, how they met, build rapport, let them talk or I do most of the talking – introducing myself and how I help them with my process and system. Have not sealed the deal. What do you recommend as discussion points for the first meeting, for high chances of booking soon after?”
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What if Google didn’t exist?
Google, in light of legislation being introduced in Australia, has threatened to pull out of the Australian market. I’m sure they won’t, if only because they won’t walk away and leave $59 billion of income on the table and destroy the trust in their brand over a couple of dollars being paid to news organisations.
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026 Social Media Challenge: It’s not about you today
Social media, and humanity in general, can become a little bit self-indulgent at times. It’s our tribal, animalistic nature, to look after one’s self first. But something beautiful happens when you turn the camera away from yourself, when you shift the spotlight onto someone else.
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025 Social Media Challenge: Meme me baby
Your challenge today is to create an entertaining meme. Not an educational meme, or an instructional meme, or a demonstratable meme. Today we meme for fun.
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024 Social Media Challenge: Can I answer you a question?
Today’s challenge is a little more casual after some intense training days, and it’s about Quora.
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023 Social Media Challenge: The writing game
Today your challenge is to write non-stop for five minutes.
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022 Social Media Challenge: You can ASCII me anything
In the beginning there was the text, and the text was good. It was all we knew. We called it ASCII, ASCII codes represent text in computers. When I first used a personal computer in 1991 “computer graphics” were mostly just text in the shape of graphics, like this was a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. And despite us inventing all of the great technologies that allow us to view videos, blogs, photos, and the rest online, in today’s challenge, we’re sticking with the original: text.
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The best tablet computer for celebrants, is it the reMarkable?
For almost the past three years an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil has been my computer that left the home. I’d always loved a Mac but I predominantly left that at my desk and if I left the office for a marriage ceremony, a meeting, a photoshoot or for travel, I would take my iPad Pro.
I’ve written the story of how that’s no longer the case on my personal blog. It’s a two parter, the first part is introducing a new Apple Silicon Macbook Air which replaces my previous MacBook in speed and power, along with replacing my iPad Pro’s portability, responsiveness, and ability to run iOS apps.
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021 Social Media Challenge: Charting the course
Here’s a chart that tells a story about my business. Before you read on or scroll, what story do you think it’s telling?
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020 Social Media Challenge: Josh’s Wheeeeeelllll of Content
Today you get a rare and direct peek into my brain. This next diagram explains how I think about content.
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How to name your celebrant business
David Placek is the branding genius behind some of the biggest names in the technology world. The words Sonos, Intel Pentium, Apple PowerBook, Blackberry, Gimlet podcasts (home of Reply All), and the Impossible burger, all came from David’s branding company, Lexicon Branding. In 2014 Placek released a book which I’d love to read – but can’t find for purchase. Luckily for me, and for you, Om Malik recapped the book in his blog recently.
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019 Social Media Challenge: Combine the five
We’re on the home stretch in this social media challenge, and you guys are absolutely nailing the challenge to the wall, good work!
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How to collect wedding guest information for your own COVIDSafe requirements
Many governments are requiring people running events to collect data about who attends the event using QR codes and web forms. Your legal responsibilities regarding COVID and COVIDSafe plans are your responsibility and this article in no way communicates what you must do regarding COVID and any safety plans. But if you need to collect data about people attending a wedding or funeral you are attending, this is a quick and easy way of doing it safely and responsibly.
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018 Social Media Challenge: Create demonstrating content
I started this little streak of content prompts highlighting the fact that there five different kinds of good content. This is the fifth: demonstratable content.
Read More017 Social Media Challenge: Let me, entertain you!
Today’s challenge, once more without stipulation of network or medium, is to entertain us.
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016 Social Media Challenge: Inspire us
Today’s challenge is to mentally stimulate us, to make us feel something, something creative,...
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015 Social Media Challenge: Be educational
Good morning students! Today you’re all teachers and we’re taking your audience back to school.
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014 Social Media Challenge: Be relevant
There are five different kinds of good content. Before you click post on anything, ever, forever, it should be at least one. If it’s two, you might get a like, three and you’re having a party, four and you just put a hashtag in front of the word winning.
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013 Social Media Challenge: Who do you love?
Today’s challenge is 98% in your hands, 1% in the calendar’s hands, and 1% from me.
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012 Social Media Challenge: Something beautiful
Ansel Adams said that we don’t take a photograph, we make it. Your challenge today is to make a...
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011 Social Media Challenge: A day in the life of …
One of my favourite uses of Instagram’s Story feature is to document the behind the scenes of what I’m doing. I see a number of benefits to the occasional behind the scenes personal documentary.
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Was the tinsel an acknowlegement?
After meeting with the Marriage Law and Celebrants Section of the Attorney-General’s...
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