Show notes:
Does the wedding industry need regulation? Today I’m chatting with Founder of Guides for Brides and Beyond Weddings Alison Hargreaves. Having spent over 30 years in the wedding industry she started to think about how she could give back. Our industry is vastly under regulated and Alison could see the need for businesses to show couples they could be trusted. This week she officially hosted the launch of the UK Wedding Association, a not for profit organisation designed to bring the industry together. Today I am diving deep into what the association is all about and why I think you should get involved.
Join the UK Wedding Association here.
Time Stamps:
00:00 – The Importance of Lifelong Learning in Business
06:34 – The Evolution of the Wedding Industry
11:44 – The Importance of Trust in the Wedding Industry
14:55 – Building a Collaborative Industry Standard
26:22 – Joining the Association: A Step-by-Step Guide
34:13 – Understanding Membership Fees and Industry Support
42:05 – The Role of Associations in the Business Community
Transcript:
Alison
00:00:00.160 – 00:00:12.320
I think learning right the way through your entire career is so, so underrated. And I think like a lot of entrepreneurs left school as soon as I possibly could.
Becca
00:00:14.080 – 00:01:05.810
I’m Becca Poutney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger and you’re listening to the Wedding Pros who Are Ready to Grow podcast. I’m here to share with you actionable tips, strategies and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you love, then you’re in the right place. Let’s get going with today’s episode. Today I’m chatting with Alison Hargreaves, founder of Guides for Brides, Beyond Weddings and the Big day agency.
In 2020, she even became deputy chair of the UK Wedding Task Force and became a voice for our industry during the pandemic. Her latest initiative is a not for profit organization with a goal of raising industry standards, the UK Wedding Association.
She is one busy lady and I’m thrilled to have her on my award winning podcast today. Alison, welcome to the podcast.
Alison
00:01:05.890 – 00:01:06.930
It’s great to be here.
Becca
00:01:06.930 – 00:01:24.290
Becca, I am thrilled to have you. Now, technically, you have actually appeared on my podcast on a number of occasions, but never like this.
You’ve been there when we’ve had live panels that you were leading which have been live podcasts. You were in the episode we did Live from your Guys for Brides celebration event. But this is actually the first time we’ve done a full interview.
Alison
00:01:24.290 – 00:01:40.890
I can’t believe it’s the first time we’ve done a full interview.
And in fact, just looking back to the last time I I spoke on your podcast, it was actually the night that we announced this great new initiative back in May, which seems like no time at all has passed since then, but my goodness, we’ve been busy.
Becca
00:01:40.970 – 00:01:51.610
Yes, a huge amount of work. And also, did you like my little sneaky mention in the intro about my award winning podcast?
Because this is the first episode I have recorded since I won my award, so I had to get it in there.
Alison
00:01:51.610 – 00:02:18.870
That’s amazing and it’s absolutely epic. It’s a huge, huge award to have won and to be up against people like the Economist on a business podcast.
I mean, amazing to have been shortlisted and I know going into it you weren’t expecting to win and I mean absolutely, I think you were very much. Just as you advise businesses, make the most of the fact you’ve been shortlisted for these awards. Talk about it.
Because just being in the room is incredible. But then to win, I mean, amazing. Well done. You must be so, so pleased.
Becca
00:02:18.870 – 00:02:51.440
I am thrilled.
I’ve got the cushion in shot behind me because I have to have that in every shot at the moment and I will be talking about it for months and years to come because I didn’t expect to win it at all. But I’m thrilled to have won it and to put the wedding industry on the map.
And one of the comments I’ve had from a lot of the judges is, oh, yeah, it is a big industry and we’ve never thought about the fact that there’s so many businesses and they need that support. So hopefully it’s just raised a little bit of awareness as well about how we’re serious business owners in the wedding industry.
We’re not just fun creatives. We actually know we actually running a successful business and we’re having a huge impact on the economy.
Alison
00:02:51.920 – 00:02:59.400
Absolutely right. Fun creative businesses who mean business, I think is the, is the. Is the key message there, isn’t it?
Becca
00:02:59.400 – 00:03:21.980
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Now, I did give a little bit of a potted history of your career in the intro, but I would love you to just whiz me through a little bit of where you’ve come from, because I said that you’ve done a huge amount of things over the years, obviously, most well known for the most part for guides for brides. Take me right back to the beginning. How did you end up in this wild industry in the first place?
Alison
00:03:21.980 – 00:06:04.640
Well, funny enough, I started off with a wedding cake company and in looking for ways to promote the wedding cake company, I realized that if several of us all got together with our business cards, because that’s all we had to promote ourselves in those good old days before the Internet, if we all got together and put our information into one little local booklet and all distributed that collaboratively, then we could reach far more couples. And it just grew from that.
So we were in print originally just in South Oxfordshire and then very quickly all of Oxfordshire and then all of the neighboring counties joined in to the point I think we had, gosh, it must have been sort of 15 or 16 different printed guides covering different areas and we were trying to work out how we could scale this and then, hey, bingo, just at the perfect time, the Internet came along and boom, we went from there.
So to start off with just UK wide, we’ve got an international brand as well, beyond weddings, that just focuses on luxury, international and along the way, all sorts of other businesses that I’ve got Involved in, invested in partly to really, really deeply understand the industry. By investing in a business, you really sit and take notice of that. So everything from bridal businesses to venues to setting up websites for.
We’ve got a website just for LGBTQ couples, just for the luxury end of the market, just for the budget end of the market, just to really understand that data. So, yeah, that’s, that’s where I’ve come from.
And then as you, as you mentioned earlier on, when we were going into the pandemic, I and a few others were very, very well placed to see all side of the industry.
So we’re in the unique position of, obviously we, we work very closely with venues and suppliers, but we’re also talking to couples and we’re in contact with couples and thousands of them on a weekly basis. So really easy for us to get the insights that we needed to be able to liaise with government officials and others within the task force.
So, yeah, it was a really, really.
It was an incredibly difficult time, but also a time for a lot of learning, I think, within our industry and realizing the changes that we need to make as an industry, as a sector to really be robust in the future.
And also, more importantly, for all of those fabulous, creative businesses to be able to make proper money out of what they do because they work so hard in this industry.
I mean, it’s such a hard working, committed industry that really, really cares and it’s sad to see how many businesses aren’t then to make the money they should do.
Becca
00:06:04.640 – 00:06:42.330
Yeah, absolutely. And we’re very thankful for all the work that you did during the pandemic.
I know that many of my listeners really benefited from the updates and the things that came out from the task force and the way that you work with the government to make sure again that our industry was heard and seen. So a special thank you for me for being part of that and to see where that’s taken you now. We’ll go into that later is also really inspiring to me.
Now, you’ve been in the industry a long time. As you said right at the start, Guides for Brides was literally a physical guide for brides, whereas now, obviously, it’s a very different beast.
And online directory. Over the years of being in the industry, what are the biggest shifts that you’ve seen?
Alison
00:06:42.650 – 00:09:58.170
Whoa. There’s been, there’s been a lot. And they ebb and flow. I think the different styles of weddings, the move away from traditional weddings.
When I started, weddings were incredibly traditional. I mean, I was absolutely groundbreaking in the, in the wedding cake company, because we did make a wedding cake that was covered in chocolate.
And it got huge attention at the time, back in. I think it was about 1994, because nobody had seen a cake that wasn’t covered in white icing.
You know, that’s how far we’ve come in just those 30 years.
But those ebbs and flows that are really helpful to us now, actually, during the economic downturn in the 2008, 2009, seeing what happened then can really help inform how businesses can adapt and benefit during this economic downturn.
So, yes, I’d say those trends and obviously the Internet, the way people are shopping online, and that’s had the biggest shift, I would say, funnily enough, the biggest shift on that has become has been in the last year. So that massive importance of trust.
And that shift from couples who, when I started in the industry, trusted their parents and their sisters and perhaps a best friend for advice and. And information, they then trusted the written word for a long time.
If you advertised in print, in magazines, that was seen as being really, really trusted. We then shifted to the Internet and directories being massive.
I mean, that was the main way people would be advertising in the early 2000s and then moving to online.
Instagram in particular, Facebook as well as a lot of businesses I know rely entirely on Facebook and Instagram because a lot of couples do use that for research until a year or two ago. And then we’ve had this big, big shift and trust and couples looking for those trust markers that are usually coming out of reviews.
I would say more than anything at the moment, there is research that suggests that reviews are now considered more relevant than awards.
But I think that’s partly because there’s quite a lot of irrelevant awards out there just there for the sake of adding credibility, not like your award. So, yeah, couples then looking for those trust markers, those recommendations.
And this year, more than any other year, we’ve had so many couples that are actually getting on the phone and saying, yeah, I can see all of this information, but who would you use? Which ones are the right businesses to use?
And I think where they have been relying on venue recommendation lists, for example, I think possibly the day of those is soon to be over. Because couples assume that if there’s a recommendation like that, that there might be some sort of commercial interest, there might be a kickback.
So it’s quite an interesting time from. From that point of view. So I’d say that that evolution of.
I mean, obviously the wedding styles, but most importantly, from our point of view and from the business point of view, that evolution on how couples are looking for business businesses and researching and, and choosing them.
Becca
00:09:58.170 – 00:10:17.430
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a huge shift.
And I was talking to someone the other day who works in AI and they were saying that they have almost every other day, like that’s how fast things are changing. And so the impact on that and the world around us, no wonder we all feel overwhelmed because everything is shifting so fast. Yeah.
Alison
00:10:17.430 – 00:11:37.110
And actually it’s possibly the AI that, that shift towards AI search that’s really making that difference because in the past you were, you know, if you use Google, which most people were using for the last few years, everyone was using Google to look for information and you’re served quite few results and you tend to sift through those and you look for resources that you then trust. Who are the recognizable brands on there that you would trust for this information?
Whereas AI, very often people are using it on the move, so they’re just listening to the response and they don’t know what to trust.
Because that is the big message that is being drummed in left, right and center is check your sources, check all of the information you’re getting through AI, particularly if you’re using the free versions, it may be tilting in a particular direction, it tilts towards what you’ve looked at in the past and so on. So if you’ve looked at something online and then asked for recommendations, hey, presto, it’s going to recommend that to you.
So, So I think that again, it’s, it’s, it’s that understanding around AI being a little biased that’s really making people question everything that they’re looking at and look for multiple proof points of, is this a good business? Are they going to look after me? Are they going to do the best for me on my wedding day?
Becca
00:11:37.110 – 00:12:07.770
Yeah, and that’s only going to become more and more difficult for us all to navig, as we all have to work out what we can trust all of the time.
Now, I know that trust is a big factor in your idea, I guess, behind this new initiative, the UK Wedding association, because as I said in the intro, it’s trying to find a way of showing that people can trust businesses and it can be a trusted resource. Again, just take me back to where this idea came from. When did you personally start thinking, I know we should have a UK Wedding Association?
Alison
00:12:09.560 – 00:17:12.180
So I think partly from recognizing back in 2024 that gaining importance of trust and frustration at seeing businesses just popping up on the Internet, you know, I’m all for great creative businesses starting up and they should be given all of the tools to thrive as quickly as possible.
But the businesses that were popping up just to make a quick buck, having seen that, you know, we are an industry does generate a lot of income and there were a lot of businesses coming in just trying to. Trying to make that quick buck to the detriment of others.
And so starting to look at solutions for that, seeing it was a massive problem and seeing that really the only way that we could tackle this was to give credible businesses the means of meaningfully benchmarking themselves against the industry so that they could have a meaningful and recognized badge that would become that shortcut to trust. But in order to do that, the first thing we needed to do is actually work out what that standard needed to be.
Because my standards are very different from somebody else’s standards. And who was I to say that this was, this was the right way to be running your business?
You know, nobody wants to be in that position of saying you should or shouldn’t be doing that. And this is an industry that’s never been regulated. So the idea that somebody might come in and start regulating it is an absolute.
No, no, you know, this is not about regulation. It’s about giving great businesses the ability to shine. And by doing that, it will make it difficult for other businesses to thrive.
So that was very much the model behind it.
So having thought about that for a long time, trying to work out how to do it, and I had this as we were going towards our 30th birthday and I was starting to think, what can I do? What can I do that’s going to be really helpful to the industry. Guides for brides is rolling along.
The team know what they’re doing here beyond weddings, exactly the same. They don’t need me within the businesses day to day. I could actually go out there and make a, make a difference here.
And then the final catalyst was winning a prestigious award that really highlighted my natural propensity to use my network for the benefit of other businesses.
And I think in recognizing that and seeing that I had this fairly major recognition for connecting people, I thought actually up until now, it’s always been to help individual businesses. Could I use that for the benefit of the entire industry? And that’s really where I started.
So I spoke to a few others in the industry that I hugely respect, including yourself, Becca, and said, I’m thinking about doing this. I’m thinking about pulling together an advisory board that can help me set up this benchmark for Industry standards.
And one after another after another of these hugely respected professionals, consultants, top of the industries, all said, yeah, that’s a great idea, I’m in. So that’s really where it came from. It’s absolutely not me working alone. The advisory board has been absolutely instrumental.
They’re every single one of them bringing a different, a different angle to what we’re offering, making sure that everything’s really diverse, thinking about every business type and then also our beta testers. So we had a load of beta testers when we first announced this back in May.
And on your podcast we had a lot of businesses saying, I’d love to get involved, I’d like to be involved in how this is shaped.
So they’ve been looking at the code of conduct and the benchmarking questions and so on and feeding back to us to make sure that it really does represent every type of business. And it is, it’s a tough, tough benchmark.
We’ve had the first businesses have started to sign up now and we’ve been monitoring their scores and it is, it is tough. We’re not expecting.
This isn’t like, you know, with reviews where you, you know, start kicking yourself if you’re not five star, if you are scoring 20%, 30%, that’s great, that’s absolutely fine. Because we are intentionally setting really, really rigorous standards and what that’s doing already is raising the.
So the feedback we’re already getting is businesses saying, I didn’t realize I should have a diversity and inclusion policy on my website. That’s a great idea. I’m going to do that now. Thank you. I didn’t realize my privacy policy wasn’t actually visible. That’s a two minute change.
Just helps make us all more professional and it also, it protects our businesses. So just by going through the benchmarking process, it’s doing that job.
Becca
00:17:12.260 – 00:19:06.870
I remember you telling me about it originally, way back before it was all officially announced and giving me an insight into the idea.
And I thought, yeah, this is really important, this is needed because there is no way of us differentiating anyone in the industry and we see it in other parts of the industry. So, you know, when you book a holiday, you know, everyone knows, oh, check, it’s up to protected all of these things.
And we know that there’s things to look at, but actually in our industry, where do we look? It’s just word of mouth, it’s reputation, it’s websites, it’s how good you are on Google.
And with that trust element being harder and harder for People to know where to go. I could see there was a real need for it.
And then the fact that you decided to try and have this cross industry approach, which is never going to be perfect, let’s be honest, it’s almost impossible to, to fully represent everyone.
But at least going in with that idea of okay, how can we represent as many different people through this advisory board to try and get as many different opinions and to try and make this as broad and inclusive as possible. It made sense even from the basic things of, you know, do you have public liability insurance?
Because it’s shocking to me the amount of people I meet starting out in business that don’t have a contract, you know, don’t have proper accounting, softw, don’t even think about public liability until it’s too late.
And so just having that thing where when people are investing in their businesses and they are taking it seriously, they can just have a little step above and go, here’s a mark to prove a bit like me going, I’ve just won an award, you know, here’s a stamp of approval to say, yeah, I am serious about this and I’m trying to get better. I think it’s something really important.
Now I know that there’s going to be people listening to this because we said we’re living in a society where trust isn’t very strong and we’re all questioning what we can trust. Trust. There’ll be people thinking, well, is this a guide to a brides initiative?
How are you making sure this isn’t, you know, is this just not another element of that business? How are we making sure this is for the industry as a whole rather than the success of individuals?
Alison
00:19:07.030 – 00:20:56.460
No, it’s absolutely not a guide to the brides initiative other than the fact that, you know, I’ve obviously got that in fact as a declared conflict of interest. So I’m liaising with all of the other, all of the other directories, all of the other online platforms.
This about pulling together absolutely everyone in the industry to collaborate on this and hopefully support this. So no, completely separate, it’s set up as a not for profit, it’s a limited company.
And the only sort of other interest that we’ve got in it is the original software that some of it sits on is our wedding safe software. So this was something that in fact we discovered last night. We knew that quite a lot of businesses were still using.
We thought it was about 250 businesses still using it, 600 businesses were still using our wedding safe software to be able to demonstrate.
And this was something that we brought out during the pandemic to demonstrate who was working under Covid guidelines and really gave us the indication that people liked the idea of a badge that they could put on their website to say yes, they’re operating safely. So yes, that has been incorporated into it as well. But no, definitely not a Guides for Brides.
But obviously Guides for Brides, the Guides for Brides team are going to be shouting about it, they’re going to be mentioning it to all of our clients.
We can measure the difference that it makes because we can follow our clients stats and we do, you know, we follow them to see what, what are the success factors and we’re going to be really interested to see and measure the commercial benefit that it has for the businesses that start displaying this badge on their Guides for Brides profile and on their own website websites.
Becca
00:20:56.460 – 00:21:52.480
Yeah.
And I think with the advisory board that you have initially put together for the first couple of years, having now been to a meeting and met a lot of them in person, it is really fascinating to see how you’ve bought in this collective of people who do represent very different parts of the industry. I mean, there were some people in that room who were very much thinking about high level, top level luxury.
You’ve got other people in there who are really coming at it from a technology perspective.
You’ve got me there just championing like the, the smaller businesses and saying, you know, yes, someone could be part time and still be a serious business owner. And yes, someone can, you know, not earn very much, but it doesn’t mean they don’t care about their business.
That’s just the business they’ve put together.
And so I think it is fascinating you were in many ways the right person to lead this because of the network of people you have, because of the reputation you have and because you have the ability to bring those people from the different areas of the industry into one fascinating room.
Alison
00:21:52.560 – 00:24:52.370
And I think that wide representation is really important in making sure it’s absolutely fair. Because we want to have a position. One of the things the advisory board will be doing is being that panel if anyone disputes a decision.
So for example, we have a code of conduct, it’s a voluntary code of conduct.
But if anyone is wanting to display our badges, they do need to sign up to a code of conduct to confirm that they’re going to behave in a particular way. And that includes, for example, respecting others online.
And if we feel a business has breached the code of conduct and will bring the association into Disrepute, we will be removing that right to be able to display the badge quite correctly in order to protect the integrity and the credibility of the standard. And that needs that advisory board there that can see from every angle and can put in a really, really fair perspective. It can’t be.
I mean, I’d like to think that I get on with everyone in the industry, but if there’s anyone that wouldn’t feel comfortable coming to me and saying no, I think the decision is wrong here. There is that entire advisory board, they can go to and talk through whatever concerns they’ve got.
But I think also having that diverse advisory board, I think we’re braver together and we’ve got to be brave, we’ve got to be bold to be able to topic, to discuss some of the topics that we’re wanting to. And a lot of what we do, we’ve spoken a lot about the benchmark and the badges. That’s, that’s half of what we’re doing.
That’s probably the bit that’s going to bring the instant gratification for businesses and that instant benefit from the point of view of their, their marketing strategy, that, that instant trust marker.
But in the longer term, we are wanting to educate, we’re wanting to professionalize the industry, we’re wanting to help those startup businesses, help them make the connections they need to help them meet the experts that will be able to help them and, and to meet other businesses.
And we doing that through in person events throughout the year, throughout the entire UK already talking to Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales to make sure that we’ve got venues there that can host in person events for us.
But also a lot of content online, so instantly available and webinars so that we can really help tackle the things that are going to help people commercially.
You know how, you know how to do a risk assessment assessment, how to sort out your paperwork for working internationally, all of those sort of topics, but also that safe training space for talking about some of the more difficult topics that we do need to address when we’re working so closely with people at a really, really vulnerable stage of their life. So, yeah, I think the advisory board really leans into that as well.
Becca
00:24:52.370 – 00:25:11.550
Yeah, absolutely. And if people want to see who’s on the advisory board, it’s all out there for people to see on the website.
I will put the link in the show notes, so go and have a look at the variety of people. And I believe as well, if you think that there’s something not represented or you feel like there’s a missing voice.
You’re very open to people reaching out and making suggestions as well, aren’t you?
Alison
00:25:11.630 – 00:26:20.680
Yeah, absolutely. And our focus on that is to make sure that it’s the type of businesses.
So, you know, the businesses that work in budget weddings, businesses that work in luxury weddings, the businesses that have a high focus on sustainability, for example, more so than, than individual categories.
So unlike during the task force where it was really important that we had a, you know, a photographer, a videographer, a florist, you know, and so on. So, for example, we have somebody that is representing retail.
You know, they happen to be a bridal boutique because that’s one of the larger areas of retail and has very specific problems and challenges to, to address. And we don’t need every single business type. Having said that, we absolutely want input from every business type.
So, you know, my door is, is very open to hearing anything that any business feels that we’re, we’re missing. You know, this is meant to, this is, this is meant to be there for everyone. This is there for everyone.
Becca
00:26:20.840 – 00:26:42.500
Yeah, absolutely. Now let’s talk about how it works practically then. So just imagine I’m listening to this podcast.
I’m a wedding florist in Herefordshire and I’m think, thinking, okay, this sounds interesting. I’m going to look at what this wedding association is about. I like the idea of having the badge of trust. I like the idea of the association.
I go onto the website, like, how does it actually work for me?
Alison
00:26:42.660 – 00:30:22.930
Yeah, well, hopefully we made that really easy. There’s, there’s a very simple join now button. Click that button and. And it’ll take you to what?
I think most businesses are very used to a stripe page for an ongoing monthly subscription.
We do ask that businesses, Jo for a minimum of a year, but then with just an ongoing rolling monthly cancellation and pop your card details in, it is at the moment 25 pounds a month for full member benefits. We don’t have different tiers of membership.
The membership is open to all, whether you’re an absolute startup or you’ve been in business for 30 years.
And for anyone that is connected to the wedding industry, that is an other category for people like yourselves, Becca, who offer consultancy services but also want to make sure that they are still operating as anyone would be expecting.
So having popped your card details in, the first thing that you will be given is a little box explaining that in order to display the badges, you need to have been in business for at least 12 months, that you agree to the code of conduct and you agree to transparency because transparency is going to be be absolutely pivotal to the trust markers in the future. From there, you’ll be given your members badge straight away. If you don’t sign the code of conduct, that’s absolutely fine.
You’ve still got access to absolutely everything and you can sign it later. We do not want to discourage the businesses that have been in business for less than 12 months.
We just as an advisory board, having discussed and discussed it, we felt that people, businesses should need to go through a full season and be absolutely confident in what they’re doing before they display our badge on their website. So we’re there to support. And then after the first 12 months, they’ll be able to display that badge.
If you choose to, you can then go through the benchmarking process. It saves your details as you go.
It takes probably a good 20 minutes, possibly a little bit longer if you’re wanting to upload evidence at the same time.
If you upload evidence evidence to demonstrate the various claims that you’re making on there, it adds extra points to your scoring and then at the end of that you’ll get a score.
At the moment we are restricting it just to the member badge, but as soon as we’re comfortable that we’ve set the bar at the right level, businesses that are performing at a suitable level will be issued an approved badge and at that point their details will, will be shown online so that couples can see them and see exactly what they’re doing. All these fantastic things they’re doing, all of these amazing sustainability initiatives that we know are out there.
And there will also be badges for the businesses that are over performing. So there are some businesses that are absolutely phenomenal and really focus in on their professionalism, their sustainability and their credibility.
And for those that will be premier and leading badges, we’re not expecting many businesses to be getting, getting those badges. We’re absolutely.
What couples should be looking for is that membership badge that says, I’m working under a code of conduct or the approved badge, which is I’m working under a code of conduct and I’m being transparent about the claims I’m making.
Becca
00:30:22.930 – 00:31:03.070
Yeah. And I’ve been through the process, I’ve had a little play around and tested it.
And what’s clever about it is, number one, if you are a florist in Herefordshire, your questions for your benchmarking are specifically for you as a florist and they will be different to if you, you are a singer or a photographer or a venue. So you are getting specific Benchmarking questions and then those questions are into three really main areas.
So we’ve got sustainability, we’ve got the diversity and inclusion and the professionalism. And then you can answer those questions throughout those areas to get your badge.
And what’s going to be clever once it’s all kind of up and running and good to go, is your couples will be able to click on that badge and see where you’re at. That’s right, isn’t it?
Alison
00:31:03.230 – 00:34:08.720
Yeah.
And just to, just to clarify the three areas of professionalism that include the diversity and inclusion, and the reason we’ve included that within the professionalism is for couples, that’s the bit they’re really seeing. So it is important to have, you know, your, you know, to be doing risk assessments and all of the business operations to be, be correct as well.
But actually for couples, they need to be trained professionally and so that’s why that has been included within that section.
Sustainability is a standalone section, again, looking at everything you’re doing, but very much with a focus on we’re not looking for perfection and we know that particularly in an economically challenging time, being able to put all of these measures in place just aren’t possible. But I actually, the things that are possible, we’re looking for businesses to do that.
So having a sustainability policy online is a really, really good starting point. And if that’s all that you’re doing, you will still reach that minimum threshold.
But if you’re doing other things, great, we’re going to shout about it. And then that last one, that trust marker, the credibility questions, those are the more searching questions.
But the idea of those is to really reward those businesses that are part of the wedd industry, part of that community, because that was really the marker that sets aside these startup businesses that are here to make a quick buck because they don’t know other professionals, they’re not attending industry events, they might not have all of the social media accounts that you would expect. They’ve not been around for enough years, they may not have a trading address.
So all of those trust markers go into that credibility one and you get a separate score for each one.
So we’re expecting, for example, brand new businesses, startup businesses, could score really, really highly and probably will in professionalism and sustainability. They may not score quite as high in trust because they’ve not been around for long enough and not yet built that network.
But then one of the things that we’ll be doing is making sure that we’ve got that support network network for them to build that network that we’re signposting them towards the experts, the others in the industry, the businesses that will be able to help them.
So if they’re coming along to our networking events or even coming to online drop ins that we will be able to say, hey, have you spoken to so and so, they were dealing with this issue a while ago, or I think they’ve got a similar business model or there’s this business that works in a really similar way to you, but in a different part of the country. You won’t compete. Why, why don’t you arrange to go there for a day? I’ll put you in touch.
So all of that is going to really, really help that community of genuine, committed businesses and frees out those that just aren’t wanting to operate in the way that, that the industry will thrive.
Becca
00:34:08.880 – 00:34:28.430
There’ll be people listening to this and thinking, this is great, but I don’t want to spend any money. And we know that it’s hard as a small business owner to spend money, but I also know from a business owner perspective there’s reasoning behind it.
So just explain to anyone who’s questioning that, why is there a sign up fee? Why isn’t it just free for everyone?
Alison
00:34:28.750 – 00:39:32.940
It’s quite expensive. First of all, to have put the website together, it’s been a huge amount of work.
We are operating as a not for profit, so we are working as lean as we possibly can. And the advisory board are all giving their time absolutely free of charge.
So, you know, those that are committed to making sure this succeeds are doing all they can to absolutely minimise costs. So there are some costs. If we want this for our industry, there needs to be a cost somewhere.
Obviously with time, as we’re more established, we will be leaning in on every possible grant we can to help support our aims and particularly around the sustainability side of things. I would really hope that this is going to be an initiative that the government will support and be able to help from that point of view.
But we have set the membership fee intentionally as low as we possibly could, partly because we’re not wanting to make any profit, but mainly to make it accessible to all. And my feeling is, compared to other things that you’re doing in marketing or the benefit it will bring, it is a very, very, very small price to pay.
Will it an extra wedding every year? My goodness, it will. You know, I would hope it will generate many, many more weddings than you would be attracting otherwise.
And particularly for those that sign up early on when their competitors haven’t, it’s going to be a real differentiator.
But also I know from my own business that power of being introduced to others and that part of that part of the network just, you know, being introduced to the right consumer consultants, the right experts to help your business, the right agencies. You know, there’s been a huge increase in businesses using marketing agencies. And part of what we do at Guides for Brides is our team.
We’ve got a team of marketeers here that are marketing guides for Brides.
We run the Big Day agency out of the office specializing in wedding marketing because we know that industry using our excess, our excess time for the benefit of, of our clients.
So we don’t have a huge number of clients, but very often they’ve come to us from agencies that don’t know the wedding industry and have completely misadvised them.
So even just being able to say, right, these are the agencies that we have seen work well for other businesses, you know, we can’t take on all that capacity ourselves. We’re going to be recommending it left, right and centre when they come into us at Guides for Brides.
And it’s having that means of being able to give that advice and one of the things that’s been stopping us giving that advice in the past and the legal advice as well, that can save businesses a lot of money is not having that legal wrapper to do it safely in. And I think all of the advisory board are in exactly the same position.
Obviously you as a consultant have your own insurance so that if you say something that someone relies on and it turns out to not be helpful advice, that they have some comeback.
We needed to make sure we’ve got that for the advisory board as well and for me personally, because there’s only so many times you want to give, give advice free of charge, making yourself liable before you go, oh gosh, is this a good idea?
So that legal wrapper, that indemnity insurance that covers all of the advisory board will enable them to be able to give people genuinely helpful, useful and valuable advice. So I would have absolutely no qualms and I’m a real stickler for everything we do. I’m going, are we over delivering on value here?
My goodness, this will over deliver on value time after time after time.
And I know one of the questions that I think you raised and we talked about it a lot, are we doing a lower rate for small businesses or new businesses? We decided not to because we really respect those small new businesses.
Very often they have quite lean startup costs and the benefits that this will bring, from the point of view of that instant ability to profit are huge.
So I would say those, those businesses will benefit the most from the association, but also I wouldn’t want to label them as being less capable of paying than anyone else because they generally are running, running really, really good businesses from the off. And if they’re not, then I hope that they can afford the membership fee to join us so we can help get them there really, really quickly.
I think anyone that listens to your podcast knows how valuable that advice is that you give out.
And I think any of, of the, your, your membership, I know you have a really, really strong membership, can instantly see the value that that brings to that to, to their businesses.
Becca
00:39:33.100 – 00:40:50.340
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think it’s a culture shift as well, really, just for us as an industry and us as individuals, because in other industries it’s a normal part of your operating cost to be in an association or to be in the association of Engineers or Chartered accountants or, you know, it’s a normal thing that people do every year to have that umbrella. And we historically just haven’t. Haven’t had it.
And so actually it’s a really exciting opportunity and I do think £25amonth is a fair charge, especially for smaller businesses. You know, like, there’s months where I probably spend that much at Starbucks and I’m sure some of my listeners do as well.
And so actually it’s about taking ourselves seriously. And the more you put into this, the better. And I think as well, if you, if you go for those benchmarks and you are scoring lower, it doesn’t matter.
You’re showing that you’re professional and that you want to be part of this. But also now you’ve got a massive checklist of things that you can go. Right, okay, this is clearly important.
I know I need to have this diversity policy on my website. Here’s the resources that the association are going to give me to help me create that. And so therefore, I will then go up on the scoring.
Whereas we’ve never really had people say to me, oh, you start a business, I don’t really know what to do. But actually, this benchmarking that’s been put together almost gives people a direction and a way to go. Yeah.
Over the next five years, here’s all of the things I want to start putting in place so that I can better myself and my business.
Alison
00:40:50.580 – 00:42:04.850
Yeah, A.B. absolutely. And the, the information that they’ll get from there instantly.
If you look at it from the point of view of savings from speaking to a solicitor, speaking to an accountant. Now, I’m not saying for one minute you shouldn’t be doing both of those.
Every business should have their, their own solicitor, accountant and, and, and, and, you know, proper professional advice there.
But the savings in being able to get the basic right first in a specialist area and then your accountant isn’t having to go out and research different areas for you. You know, every accountant needing to check for their one or two businesses.
You know, we’re working with, we’re partnering with a lot of businesses that are going to be supporting our members, generally by offering lower rates to them, but also writing advice pieces.
And one of those is a solicitor, for example, and they’re not going to, you know, give you a complete contract, but are they going to be giving you advice and tick lists on what needs to be in your contracts? Yes, absolutely.
They’re going to give you that really good starting point that you can then take to your own solicitor and say, right, these are the things that are relevant from the point of view of weddings. Can you make sure these clauses are in there?
Becca
00:42:05.090 – 00:42:29.310
So helpful bigger picture then, where do you see the association going?
Because we can talk about the individuals and the membership and the benchmarking, but one of the things I found really exciting about the idea and having looked at what you did with UK Task Force, is that there is the potential for the association to become a more formalized voice in the industry in terms of talking with government and making sure we’re represented. Do you see it going in that direction as a bigger picture project?
Alison
00:42:29.950 – 00:45:56.230
That thought absolutely terrifies me, to be honest, Becca, having been involved in that during the task force, it may well be a role that we will need to fulfill because there is a gap there.
The UK hospitality, UK hospitality in theory sits in that position at the moment, but I think it’s probably going to depend on whether there is that interest and that impetus from within the advisory board. So if we have somebody that is wanting to take on that role and look at that in the long term, absolutely.
I think that’s something that we can be doing that’s very, very useful. Both myself and Siobhan Craven Robbins, who’s on the advisory board as well, sit on various panels.
So, for example, I sit on one that looks at threat, so terrorist threat, apart from anything else, just so that we’ve got the means of feeding that information in and feeding information out about what isn’t being looked at and is going to be relevant from the point of view of weddings. Same with power of events. We both sit on their advisory board so that we can discuss issues that affect our industry as well as others.
Obviously, the Law Commission is a really, really important question at the moment. And what’s going to happen with that reform?
We will have the means of being able to contact large numbers of the wedding community through our platform. So from the point of view of getting opinions, making sure people are feeding in a consistent message, all of that sort of know, certainly we can.
We can assist with. Is it going to be a main goal? No, it’s very much this benchmarking and helping businesses stand out and the education side.
But I can see why and how it could roll into that.
I would say in the meantime, one of the things that I think will quite possibly come out over the next couple of years will be best practice documents, because that’s something that we don’t really have within the industry, but was starting to come out of a lot of the benchmarking questions. It was raising those questions of what should we be doing in these situations? What should the policy be?
So some of the tricky questions around, for example, how far should you go with AI? Is it acceptable for a photographer to use an AI produced image on their Instagram?
Is it acceptable for a venue to use an AI produced image on their Instagram? Should it be identified as such?
So those sort of things, being able to have a panel that can actually sit down, really diverse panel of businesses that are interested and have a commercial interest in it, we can quickly pull those together into a round table, potentially with a solicitor or with an AI expert, sit down around a roundtable and say, this is what within the industry we feel is fair. And then it takes some of those fairly toxic conversations, conversations offline.
Because at the moment, it’s not helpful to the wedding industry that when these issues come up, they’re debated quite publicly online. And it doesn’t make. It doesn’t help anyone look professional. Nobody involved in those conversations looks great when that happens.
Becca
00:45:56.390 – 00:46:56.190
I think it’s really exciting. I think there’s a lot of opportunities.
I can see there could be a lot of powerful conversations happening to help all areas of the industry, but obviously we need also people to get behind it. The industry as a whole needs to get behind the initiative and think, yeah, I can see the benefit of that.
And I do think there will be benefits to those who join early as well. So if you are interested, it is now officially live. You can go and check it out. I’ll put the link in the show notes. Go and have a Look at it.
If you’ve got questions, chat to myself, chat to one of the advisory board, chat to Alison. It’s a very transparent process. Like Alison said, all of us on the advisory board, we’re giving our time and our expertise for free in this.
There’s no commercial interest for me whether or not you join, but I do think as industry as a whole, there’s a massive benefit of us getting behind it. So I will put all the information in there.
I think it’s an exciting time and I’m sure I’ll get you back on in a year’s time and we’ll reflect on where it’s going next and what’s happening and what we’ve seen come out of it, the data and things like that. I do need to draw this conversation to a close, otherwise we’ll be talking about this all day. Alison. So I’m going to ask you the.
Alison
00:47:02.840 – 00:48:29.590
I think, like a lot of entrepreneurs left school as soon as I possibly could. I chose not to go to university in the uk.
I traveled and in fact went to university in the States studying something that I was really interested in at that point. And I’ve continued with that throughout my career. And I now, looking back, realize the benefit of having that sort of really curious mind.
And we can do that, that now it’s so accessible through, through AI. Just, you know, every time I jump in the car, I’m either listening.
I listen to your podcast a lot in the car, as I think, you know, but I’m either listening to a podcast, I’ve got them there all lined up, or I’m getting onto AI and I’m just having a conversation with Chat and I’m asking it about, you know, anything that that has come up during that day that I’m interested and would like to understand more about.
And, and I think just having that really curious mind and constantly, constantly learning about the things that will help us grow better businesses, be better leaders, help others around us. I think it’s incredibly valuable and really, really fulfilling.
And it took me a long time to realize the importance of that, having been so against education throughout my teens. But yeah, that realization may be a little late in life, but I’m there now.
Becca
00:48:29.670 – 00:48:43.130
A curious mind, something that we all should have. I love that. Absolutely. For sure. Alison, as always, it’s a pleasure having this conversation with you. It’s a pleasure chatting to you.
Thank you so much, Anna. I’m excited to see where the association goes next.
Alison
00:48:43.130 – 00:48:43.970
Thank you, Becca.
Becca
00:48:43.970 – 00:49:16.750
What an interesting conversation.
I don’t know whether this has sparked all sorts of questions in your mind about what this is all about, but I hope that we’ve given you a bit of an overview about where the idea of this wedding association has come from and why we genuinely believe it’s going to be useful to you. As I said in the conversation, we’re an open book.
If you’ve got questions, if you’ve got thoughts, lots of you got input, do reach out to me, reach out to Alison.
We’d love to chat with you, but I think it’s an exciting time for our industry and especially those of you listening to this, because you are professional businesses and now you’ve got a way to showcase that to your clients. I’ll see you next time.
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