You’re a wedding planner with a budging portfolio, glowing testimonials, and experience that a bride would appreciate. But, not displaying the right body language during a meeting can hurt your chances of getting a bride to hire you, even if you have the best credentials.

Here are 6 tips that will help you through your meeting with brides:

1) Greet with a firm handshake

Practice shaking hands with friends and make sure you have a good handshake. I weak one shows you lack confidence. A bone crusher will make the bride think you will be  pushy and overbearing during the planning process.

2) Have good eye contact

If you look around during the conversation, instead of at the bride, you will appear disinterested and distracted. If you look down, it will appear that you lack the confidence it takes to plan weddings. Always maintain eye contact, or, if you have trouble looking into someones eyes, look at the space between their eyes.

3) Smile

You want to appear confident and happy to be meeting your bride. Smile when you are on the phone also, it will make your tone of voice seen friendly and warm.

4) Don’t cross your arms or legs

I have seen people enter a room with both arms in front of them clutching a portfolio or briefcase, they looked insecure and like they had something to hide. Crossing you arms and legs during a meeting indicates you are closed to the information being shared. Remember, you want to appear confident, open and interested at all times.

5) Sit up straight

You may have a tendency to slouch when you sit, especially when you meet a bride in place with lounge seating, such as a reception venue or coffee shop. This could make you appear too casual or disinterested so sit up straight without appearing stiff, unnatural and uncomfortable.

6) Don’t play with your hair, rub your nose, or scratch

These are actions you may be doing without even knowing it. Pay attention to what you may be doing in casual conversations with friends and family and make it a point to control these actions.

Brides today are using Pinterest to plan their weddings. As a wedding planner, you’re probably there too, pinning your favorite photos of wedding details such as invitations, cakes, tabletops and dresses. That’s great! Doing this is a way for you to attract brides and show them your style.

Did you know you can also use Pinterest to send brides back to your blog to get to know more about you and your business? I learned about pinning posts from The Publicity Hound and it’s a perfect way for you to market your blog to brides.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Create a new board with the title “Wedding Planning Tips,” or something similar.

2) Go to your blog and select blog posts in which you have offered wedding planning tips, ideas on wedding decor, and other topics in which you have shared your expertise. (I’m going to guess that your posts already have great photos on them.)

3) “Pin It” after you have written a short, compelling description of your post.

To see examples of “pinned” blog posts, check out my board, “Wedding Business Tips.” I’ve started to pin some of my old blog posts on it along with tips from other sites that I thought would be interesting and helpful.

By the way, don’t forget to complete your profile on Pinterest, you want brides to know you are a wedding planner when they visit your boards.

As a new wedding planner you probably have recently created a website to market your business to brides. You’ve filled it with beautiful wedding photographs and  information about the services you offer. But have you ever looked at it through the eyes of a new bride, coming to your site for the first time, to determine how effective your site is?

Look at your website with fresh eyes and ask yourself these 5 questions:

1) Is the site focused on what your bride needs to know?

Don’t get so caught up in having a beautifully designed site that you don’t address the needs of your bride. She  may enjoy looking at the site but if she doesn’t get the information she needs about your wedding planning services, she’ll leave without contacting you.

2) Can a bride in your niche tell the site is talking to her?

You should address your target bride, not all brides in general. For example, if you want a bride who has the budget for a lavish wedding, she should see that type of wedding in your photographs and read about the benefits of having you plan that type of wedding for her.

3) Is the site easy to navigate?

Make sure it ’s easy for a bride to go from one page to another, and don’t make her click on too many links for information.

4) Do you have easy-to-understand information about your services?

A new bride might not have the depth of knowledge about weddings and wedding planning that you do. She may only vaguely know what a wedding planner does. Everyday wedding terms, like “day of,” may be foreign to her. Clearly explain the benefits you offer a bride and give simple explanations about what those services are. Remember the goal is not to tell her everything on the website, it’s to get her to want to contact you.

5) Have you included your contact information?

You can have a form for a bride to complete if she wants to ask questions, but you should also include your phone number and email address so a bride can reach you directly. Your physical address would also be helpful because it would tell her the approximate geographic area in which you work.

By looking at your website as if you are a new bride and making the necessary changes, you can make it a more effective way to market to brides.

“I could be a wedding planner, if only I could quit my job.”

“I could get more brides to notice me, if only I could get one of my weddings into a bridal magazine.”

“I would have it made, if only I could plan a celebrity’s wedding.”

“I would be a better wedding planner, if only I could first work for someone like Preston Bailey.”

Have you heard yourself making comments like these?

It’s easy to believe that if one big, special thing happened to you, you wouldn’t have any problems being a successful wedding planner. After all, it does seem like this is what happens to wedding planners in the movies.

In real life, no celebrity or situation is  going to give you instant success.

You are going to be the one who makes yourself successful, and you can do it:

1) Start from where you are right now

Don’t wait for the “perfect time” to come along before you start your business. You can still be in school or working and start your wedding planning business part time.

2) Don’t let yourself procrastinate

It’s good to take some time to visualize your dream wedding planning business, but dreams can’t become reality without action. Make plans as to how you are going to have the success you want, then get going.

3) Serve the brides in your area

Sometimes new wedding planners feel a need to leave their area in order to find celebrities or people in a higher economic level.

There are local brides in your area and niche who need your services. Do some research, find out how you can best help them, then market those services.

4) Have confidence

Know that no one needs to rescue you in order for you to be successful. You can do it yourself when you take consistent action to move your business forward.

Do your brides and grooms and their families and friends know you can help them plan wedding related events? It sounds like a silly question, but believe it or not people often get so focused on the fact that you are planning the Big Day, that they may not realize that you can also help plan other events. These might include bridal showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, bridesmaids’ luncheons, rehearsal dinners, after-parties, and post-wedding day brunches.

Share with your couples, and their families and friends, these 5 reasons why they should hire you to plan their wedding related events:

1) The bride can focus on her wedding

With so much to do before her wedding day, the bride doesn’t need to be involved in helping to plan parties, nor does she need to be worried about how family members and friends will handle them. You can take the lead and relieve her of the stress of dealing with the details of these events.

2) Everyone can relax and enjoying the time before the wedding

Family members and friends can get as stressed about the wedding as the bride and groom, and party planning takes a lot more work than people realize. With you helping them, they will be able to enjoy the events, even when they are hosting them.

3) You know traditional and modern etiquette 

People may not know whom to invite, when the events should be held, and what should take place during the events. You can share your knowledge in these areas and help them make the right decisions.

4) You have knowledge of a wide range of venues

With your experience, you can offer unique ideas for places to hold events that family members and friends have not thought of before.

5) You have creative ideas on how to make these events really special

Since you are spending a great deal of time getting to know the bride and groom while you plan their wedding, you will be able to create events that match their personalities and the style and tone of their wedding.

Offer to plan events from start to finish or offer consultation-only services. For example, for a flat fee you could find and book a venue and help with menu selection.

It’s important to remember that you should only take on these additional events if you have the time and expertise to deliver in an excellent manner. Hire assistants or bring in other vendors if you need help creating events worthy of your brides and their loved ones.

It’s the first business day of the second quarter of 2012, it’s time to review the goals and plans you made at the beginning of the New Year to have a successful wedding planning business.

Are you getting as much business as you had planned to get or are you struggling with getting brides to find you or hire you after you have met?

If you have not yet seen the success you wanted to see, don’t dwell on your mistakes and shortfalls. Learn from them, decide what you can do differently, make a plan, and take action to have a successful second quarter.

Here are 4 tips to help you move forward:

1) Update your online marketing

If you haven’t already done it, upload a cover photo that well represents your business on your new Facebook Page timeline. (If you don’t have a FaceBook Page for your business, start one right away.)

And, don’t just ask people to hire you on your FaceBook wall, post helpful information and links so the brides in your niche see you as an expert.  

Make it a habit to blog regularly so search engines find you and index your posts.

Be sure your Pinterest boards are full of the images that would attract the brides in your niche. And, you should have completed your Pinterest profile with information about your wedding planning business, so brides know you are a wedding planner.

2) Get out of the office

To often, new wedding planners think they can get all of their clients with online marketing. Not true, you also need to get out and meet people. Attend business and social events to widen your circle of friends and make it a point to meet high-quality, professional wedding vendors and get to know them so you can exchange referrals in the future.

3) Continue your education

Your education shouldn’t stop when you have opened your business. Learn more about running and marketing a business and continue to study all the aspects of wedding planning and design so you can be the successful expert your brides need you to be.

4)  Be committed to doing what it takes, and take action

So many times I hear planners say they know what to do to attract more clients such as blog, follow up after a bridal show, etc., but they haven’t gotten around to it yet.

No excuses!

Successful wedding planners take action and get things done, they do what it takes to be successful.

As a new wedding planner, you may have a beautiful blog, filled with photographs of weddings and wedding inspiration that brides love to look at. But, you can’t just have brides stopping by once or twice to admire your photos. You need brides to return to your blog often, recognize you as an expert in your field, and be motivated to contact you to be their wedding planner.

Here is a checklist of 5 things your blog posts should have to entice brides to return:

1) A headline that refers to the subject of your post and grabs a bride’s attention

I’ve seen headlines such as, “the Wedding of Jane and John.” A bride would more likely stop to read your post if it referred to an aspect about the wedding that would interest her. For example, use the theme as the headline, “A Country Chic Wedding,” instead of the names of your couple.

2) A great opening paragraph

Start with a few sentences telling your brides what the post is about. As planners, we love giving details, but save them for later. Here, you want to get them interested in reading your entire post.

3) Comments about the photos

Don’t just post a lot of photos and say, “isn’t this pretty?” Tell brides why a photo is relevant to them and offer some expert advice. If your photo features a wedding cake, talk about the cake in the photo then give tips on selecting the right cake and the right cake designer or baker.

4) Relevant posts

Your blog is for brides, if you have other businesses and interests, write other blogs. Keep this one focused on helping brides with their weddings.

5) Good keywords and tags

Your posts should have keywords and phrases brides would enter when they search for information on the topic. This way the search engines will lead them to your blog.

What keeps brides coming back to your blog? What would you add to this checklist?

Now that you’re starting your wedding planning business, you’ll hear that you need to develop an “elevator pitch,” a summary about yourself and your business that can be delivered quickly, in the time it takes to ride an elevator. Of course, that’s not the only place to use this speech. You’ll use your pitch to easily and effectively to answer the question, “What do you do?’ at any business or social event.

The April issue of Success magazine has tips on the “modern” elevator pitch. I’ve translated their tips into 3 that can help you, as a wedding planner, attract brides and good referrals:

1) Tell what you are offering and how your wedding planning services help brides

Don’t just say you’re a wedding planner, mention the unique services that you offer and how brides benefit from those services. Answer the question in people’s minds, “How are you different from other wedding planners and how does that help brides?”

2) Share your passion for weddings and your desire to help couples on their special day

I’ve heard new wedding planners tell people how they hated their jobs or were laid off so they decided to become wedding planners. Too much information! People are attracted to people who are positive and happily doing what they love.

3) Mention how you have helped a bride in the past

People love hearing stories, so give an example of how you helped a bride have the wedding she wanted. This way, the listener knows you have the knowledge and skills needed to help brides.

Develop your pitch then practice, practice, practice, so you feel comfortable and confident telling people who you are and the benefits of hiring you.

The March 2012 issue of Brides magazine ranks hiring a wedding planner high on their list of ways for a bride to “plan a wedding and still have a life.”

The 3 reasons they give for hiring a wedding planner are ones that you can incorporate into your marketing message:

1. You take care of most of the wedding planning work, allowing a bride to spend time with her fiance
2. You negotiate discounts with wedding vendors, which means your services can pay for themselves
3. You coordinate all activities during the most important last 4 to 6 weeks before the wedding, eliminating some of the feeling of being overwhelmed that a bride who plans her own wedding experiences

The article also mentions other ways a bride can still have a life when planning a wedding. The most important one you’ll want to share with your bride - don’t become a perfectionist.

If your bride gets too obsessed with making everything perfect, she’ll miss having fun planning the wedding of her dreams. Encourage her to select a few things that really make a difference to her and her fiance and concentrate her time and energy on those few things.

A wedding planner recently told me she doesn’t have a Facebook business page, blog, or write an ezine because brides probably already know a lot of the information she would share.

Not true!

When you are a wedding planner you’ve been “behind-the-scenes,” you know what it takes to really plan a fabulous wedding, the preparation, the attention to details, the organization, the patience, and the hard work.

Think about the first time you planned a wedding for someone. Remember all of the things that you might not have been prepared to handle that you can now take care of without a second thought. Write those ideas down and start creating tips that you can post to your Facebook page, blog, and write in your ezines.

Brides want to know the information you’ve gained from your experience so share your “behind-the-scenes” tips and let brides get to know you as the expert you are. They’ll come to understand what it really takes to plan the wedding of their dreams, realize they can’t do it all themselves, and want to hire you as their wedding planner.