Always an outstanding event, Engage14, the luxury wedding summit, is even more of everything this year.  I first attended an Engage conference in 2009 and it was a game changer for me.  I met incredibly motivating people who would shape my entrepreneurial thinking over the next several years.  2014 is the first Engage conference held in Cayman for three years, and is an opportunity to learn from the superstars of the industry, to network with the forward thinking, and to brag on Cayman a bit.

Rather than verbatim reporting, my recap series will be short key takeaways of the speakers and events each day.  Read on.

Monday, November 17, Sessions

Keija Minor – Brides Magazine – State of the Industry

Keija defined the luxury wedding market as a wedding with a budget of over US$80,000 (vs US$28,000 average for non-luxury segment).  She delivered a statistics compendium focussed on this luxury segment.  Some highlights of the avatar of the luxury wedding client are:

• Dated for 2.5 years
• 17% gave the groom an ultimatum to propose
• 80% start with a budget and 80% of them increase that initial budget
• 41% get married in a house of worship vs 31% for non-luxury segment
• 66% add cultural elements to the ceremony
• 41% do not use matching bridesmaids dresses (yay)
• 17% include their pets
• 11% have a man-of-honour
• 27% shoot boudoir photos
• 83% connect with hotel or venue using social media vs website
• 51% shoot a ring selfie
• 73% save images to Pinterest
• 95% use social media to plan
• 92% of guests posting on social will use a special hashtag if requested
• 30% of couples are using special hashtags
• 11% ask guests NOT to post pics on social media
• 56% ask for cameras to be put away during the ceremony

Ron Ben-Israel

Ron, of Ron Ben-Israel Cakes, discussed, well, wedding cakes and wedding cake designs.  A very visual presentation, this one is harder to blog on, but suffice to say Ron’s work is incredible.  He has learned by doing, by saying ‘yes’ to commissions then figuring out how to do it, and by creating tools and techniques to achieve results that propelled him to the top of the industry. Ron passed on a few items of business wisdom.  Of note:

• Keep to a schedule.  You have made a commitment to someone when agreeing to a time so stick to it like everything depends on it. It greatly enhances your reputation.
• Make people (your clients and others in your chosen profession) feel well taken care of and are supported.

Bryan Rafanelli – Rafanellli Events

Bryan has earned his place as one of the top 10 wedding designers in the United States.  Much like Ron, he spoke on key things

• Imagine the team you would want to work with and have around you then invest in what it takes to create that team, that vision of your future.
• Own the client.  By that he means, be the key contact point.  Control all the elements of introduction to other vendors such as photographers, venues, etc. It is your reputation on the line.
• Don’t seek to ‘brand’ the event as your company party.  It is the clients party that should exude a sense of style  and a service standard that does the branding work for you.
• His advice for planners and others in any professional service business is to charge by the hour.  Spend time to completely know your costs and charge accordingly, not how the guy down the road is charging.
• You have to value your time and your reputation and actively manage both.
• There are 1,850 billable hours in a year after holidays, etc.  When each is gone without billing, it is lost revenue that you cannot make back up anywhere.

Simon Bailey

Simon is a professional speaker.  I first heard him back at Engage09 and was fairly well blown away.  I have not followed his professional development since then and am impressed by the growth he has made in his platform.  He is truly impressive.  When I heard him last he spoke on personal brilliance.  While this is still a background theme, he is more focussed now on ‘owning the moment’.  What does this look like?

Own it:

• What is it you want to go after?
• You are the only one who can get that for you.
• You will get to a place where it is time to make the leap to the next level.
• Let things go.  What does not work, what is holding you back, what inhibits you form your potential… let that go.

Create it:

• What piece of the goal will you own next year or in the future?
• Work to acquire a circle of competence around you.
• Know that you cannot create this desired future without letting go of your past.
• You should not want all the business.  You should want all the business that you deserve.

Sustain it:

• It is often whom you think that you are not that holds you back from who you could become.
• Drop the, “I’m not … “ and start saying, “I am … “.
• Be you.  Show up.  Be present.

He offered the advice that small business in particular should consider having a small advisory board that meets every 90 days.  This board should comprise a person with a legal background, a person with a financial background, and a marketing person, at the very minimum.  These three to five people are not there to advise you on your business.  Rather, Simon flips the normal advisory board on its head and suggests instead that the board be mined for ideas and information on what is happening in their worlds.  What are the innovations, the challenges, the opportunities they are seeing.  They are often the smoke signals of similar changes coming down to the your particular industry.

As always, Simon offered up some great quips.  Some of my favourites:

• The letters used in the word ‘listen’ and also spell ‘silent’.  When you are silent you are open to what may come out of the conversation  You connect, and connections are the currency of the future.
• It’s not about always pushing out, it should also be about the pulling in.  Engagement should be about asking questions, creating connections, helping others develop.
• E-commerce is transitioning to R-Commerce, the recommendation economy.
• Customer service is dead.  It is now all about customer love. Moments. Perceptions. Memories.

Mindy Weiss

Mindy is a world renowned planner.  She shared several of her experiences and challenges.  What is really interesting to me on hearing her speak, is how the problems and challenges that the top level of planners have often do not seem that far removed from the everyday challenges of the rest of the industry.  Mindy spoke on highlights she is seeing.  Some of these include:

• Twinkle lights.  Love them or hate them twinkle lights are back in fashion.
• Less is more.  Don’t overwhelm.  Simplicity is beautiful.
• Shades of green and white.  Bold colours have taken a backseat and will continue to do so into 2015 as muted pastels take on increasing prominence in wedding design.

Mindy is a hilarious speaker (she used my favourite word – Redonkulous – in her talk after all) and she wrapped up her talk with a top 10 list of things couples ask planners.  Suffice to say that the list is best kept within the four walls of the conference hall.

Hopefully there is some information in this and the following recaps that is interesting to you.  Nothing beats actually attending an engage event (or a similar high level learning event in your industry).  However, through this three part recap series I hope I can give some insight in to the energy, passion and spirit of this diverse and inspiring group of speakers.

Feel free to ask questions or seek more information from me through the comments link on this page.