With new celebrants entering the market every month, your marketing, sales, enquiry, and booking process need as much attention as your ceremony production and delivery do. I want to introduce the concept of red-teaming to your business.

You’ve probably heard of mystery shopping, and many of us have done it at some time to find out what others are charging or offering.

I don’t encourage mystery shopping in the industry – it happens enough without my say – but I would encourage you to engage a “red team” to not just mystery shop you, but to identify weak points in your business.

Red teaming is the practice of rigorously challenging plans, policies, systems and assumptions by adopting an adversarial approach. A red team may be a contracted external party or an internal group that uses strategies to encourage an outsider perspective.

The goal of red teaming is to overcome cognitive errors such as groupthink and confirmation bias, which can impair the decision-making or critical thinking ability of an individual or organisation.

Ask people you respect, who have industry and professional knowledge you value, alongside people in your target market of couples getting married, to “attack” your business as a red team.

Empower them to enquire and attack you and eventually, help you succeed.

Ask them to:

  • find your weak spots, where do you not perform well
  • find your invisible spots, what are you not saying in your marketing, website, and communications
  • find your strong points, where are you performing well

So you can strategise for a better 2024.

The truth is that you are on the field of the game that is the wedding industry and if you don’t know what your weak and strong points are then you’re not fully equipped to win and we want you to win.

Near my house there’s an Italian restaurant with a gigantic mirror on the second floor of the restaurant, you can see it from the street and it looks grand.

Recently a new coffee shop has opened up directly across the road from the restaurant and I’ve come to enjoy their coffee. Sitting inside the cafe this last week I glanced at the trattoria and instead of the grand mirror I saw a sea of blue.

It took me a moment but I soon realised that the blue-branded chemist next door to the new cafe was reflected in the mirror.

I saw the mirror from a different perspective and it was bright blue instead of the normal warm brown colours I’d often see it in.

Changing perspective lets you see things from a different angle, and changing your angle you see things from gives you a new perspective.

I hope you have the chance this year to see your business from a different angle.