Alayna Thomas - Do you really understand Gen Z?

Alayna Thomas - Do you really understand Gen Z?

Are you truly connecting with your multi-generational wedding clients and employees, or are assumptions holding you back? Are you providing the "why" behind your services? This episode unpacks the pitfalls of generational stereotypes and emphasizes starting conversations to tailor your approach to diverse clients' and employees' needs.

Listen to this new episode for insights on bridging generational gaps and enhancing communication with Gen Z clients and employees.

About Alayna: 

GenZ Retention Strategist Alayna Thomas, MS, PHR, is a wise-beyond-her-years representative of the new workforce. USA Today listed her as a “2024 Keynote Speaker to Follow.” With a Master’s in Management and her Professional HR certification from HRCI, Alayna understands how the workforce has evolved over time and what organizational leaders must do to keep up and retain talent of all ages. 

Contact: Alayna travels nationwide to share Magnet Culture’s bold insights and would love to talk with you! She can be reached at solutions@magnetculture.com.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/alayna-thomas

Website: magnetculture.com/team/alayna-thomas

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/

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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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Transcript

Do you really understand Gen Z? I know. I don't think I do. So listen to this episode and let's find out. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have on Alayna Thomas, a retention specialist at Magna Culture and Agency herself, to talk about Gen Z and help us understand it better. So, Alayna, thanks so much for joining me.

Thanks, Alan, for having me.

So, something we spoke about a little bit offline and something I have been thinking about is we like to put people into buckets because we've just labeled, Right? I just labeled you as a Gen Z and you said yourself you're an older Gen Z, which puts you kind of on that cusp. So you might have tendencies of Gen Y and Gen Z. Or should we just get rid of the buckets altogether? I mean, what do you. What do you talk to us about that?

Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's human nature for us to put people in buckets. I have a slew of labels that I put on myself that really help me understand who I am and my place in the world. And we do that for other people, too. I think it can be helpful and harmful. Where it's most harmful is when we end the conversation there. So I put Alan, I look at you, I say, okay, great, Alan falls into these buckets. Alan, what generation are you?

I am a very young baby boomer, very old Gen X.

Awesome. I love that you helped shape the workplace that we're in today and you've built your own business. Right? But if I were to take that and put you in a box and say, okay, well, Alan must be fill in the blank stereotype about a young boomer, then that's going to keep us from growing our relationship, keep maybe me from asking questions and getting to know you better. If I stop the conversation there, we're done, right? But if we use it to start the conversation like, okay, I might know these things about Alan, maybe we have some things in common. Maybe there are some differences, right? Then we can go from there. And a big reason why we put people in buckets or look at labels is because that helps us understand what's going on and helps us understand the trends. So I love talking about generations from an employee perspective for that employer mindset, but it applies in any context, including for those listening today. If we can understand that we have a very wide range of generations then, and start the conversation here, then the potential is limitless for how we better understand one another.

So our audience has this coming from two sides. One is their customers doing weddings and events. So certainly with weddings, they're dealing with Gen Y and Gen Z. And that's just labeling just because of the age range. Right. So people in their early 20s, people going up into their mid to late 30s, certainly people getting married of all ages, but pretty much, you know, the average age is around 30 for couples these days. So where are they? They're older, right? They're younger. Gen Ys.

No, no, older. Hang on. Younger Gen Ys. Older Gen Z.

It's Alphabet and number soup, Right?

Yeah. And then my grandson is a Alpha. Right. So then just going on to that on top of that. So it. Again, just from the standpoint of saying, okay, you're between this age and this age, we're saying you are dealing with people in those age ranges. But the other side of it is we have a lot of solopreneurs, but we also have people that have employees, contractors, other businesses that they deal with, and they're dealing with these different people as well. My assistant is a.

Is a Gen Z, Right. Just because of the fact of her age. She just graduated college. Right. That would make her a Gen Z. And again, for no other reason, that. Okay. That she just fell between this.

This age range over here, what I hear from a lot of people, and this is where those buckets come back, right? They like to label and say, oh, Gen Z is this right? They're. They're lazy. They're whatever. They said that about Gen Y also. And, and, and. But I know Gen Z's and Gen Y's that are not like that, right? So I think this is a lot like any other stereotype we have, which is if we don't know, then we make assumptions. Right? We know what happens when we make assumptions. We don't want to do that.

Or as Brene Brown said, the story I'm telling myself is that because you're this age, you must be whatever. But that's not the case. So let's start with the customer side, right? You have someone who may or may not be the age of their clients. Because the thing with the wedding industry, Alayna, is every year we, the businesses get older, but the customers don't. So in the, in the 30 years that I've been doing this, couples have gotten about five years older. Like, I don't know how time travel happened, but, you know, I got 30 years old, they got five years older. Yeah. So let's start with that.

When you're dealing with clients today who are in their 20s and, you know, early 30s, whatever. So we're crossing into two of those letters if we want to. Want to take those buckets there. What are some of the things that you see people doing wrong when trying to communicate with the people of those ages?

Yeah, I'll actually start with a story that I promise I'll answer that. So think about me, old, one of the oldest, Gen Z. How I grew up, I learned was really different than how other people grew up. And I've only just started to put those pieces together. So when I was a little kid, I mean, five, six years old, I was always asking why? Why this? Why this? Oh my gosh. Probably so annoying to my parents. And the difference here is that my parents rarely responded with, well, because I said so, because that wouldn't appease me. I would just keep asking, well, why? Well, why? And Gen Y, actually, I like to lovingly call Jen W H Y.

I think they were the first. Right. And then of course Gen Z is going to come in with more of that voice and wanting that answer. But what I think we're doing wrong is by not realizing and anticipating that big question for our client, especially our younger clients, are going to want to know why and more of the backstory. I mean, tradition, for tradition's sake is less common among our younger individuals. I like to say this obligation era is over. So assuming that they know what you know and that they're going to do it because they should, right? I mean, even think family, like you should invite that family member. Why should I invite that family member? Right.

There's, there's more of that conversation. So individuals are demanding. If you don't tell them ahead of time, they will demand in a very soon conversation, well, why do I need to do that? What's in it for me? I don't understand. I think that's the first pitfall is coming in and thinking this is going to be a conversation like I had 10 years ago. No, this is a conversation with someone who wants the why now.

It's funny you say that because I am not today's generation and that's exactly who I am. I actually left the job because I asked, why do we do it this way? And they said, do it because we said so. And I said, that doesn't work for me. I need to know why. My mother said I used to take apart my toys when I was a little boy because I wanted to see how they worked. You know, like a little cars that you pull back or whatever. So, oh my gosh, and so it's, it's more of a personality type than it is in age. But there is something you said that that is just unmistakable is that I grew up in a different world than you did.

Right. I turned on the TV and there were, you know, seven channels or nine channels or whatever it is. And you know, now it's 900 channels and people say, hey, did you watch that? It's like what is that? What, what, what, what? Now it's what network? It's not just what channel.

Right.

It's what network is that Subscription?

What's that?

Exactly.

I don't know if I have that subscription right now. Let me go get it.

Right. And, and, and the. But we're, we're in these silos, right? That's also. It's cultural, it's location based. Right. You're in Texas, I'm in New Jersey. Right. We see the world differently because of that.

Your parents answering the why versus someone your age went to your school, their parents didn't want to answer why. Their parents said do it because we said so. Right. So that's also that. But it's more of a. Is this because of the access to information that you've always had that I didn't have?

Absolutely. I think that can be one piece. So you said like my punchline, which I love is it's not about birth year, it's about mindset. Because if I were to say that all this had just to do with someone's birth year and all Gen Z are the same Gen Z right now based on Bureau of labor statistics age 13 to 28. Okay. I am, I do not think the same as a 13 year old at least. God, I hope not. Right? I hope not.

And there are some people who of course are, are that cusper and they're like, do not even call me Gen Z. Right. Just goes back to that assumption piece. But you just said so perfectly. So many factors influence our mindset and absolutely access to information. Those who have more access to information as quickly as I do are going to expect answers as quickly as I get them and might even struggle with. I like to call Gen Z this on demand generation. But all of us have access on demand now like you just said.

The difference is that that happened during my formative years. I have always had access to information very quickly compared to my parents. So how are you seeing that? Actually to pose a question to you, how are you seeing that has changed within this industry from a client perspective? That access to information just changing how you have to do business with your.

Clients because of that access, you have customers that are doing a lot more research before they reach out to you. And what people don't see is if the information is not on your website or accessible to them, you're losing business that you can't see people passing you by. I presented at a conference recently and I saw somebody on Facebook. It said something about pricing, and he said, he's Genoa Y, his wife is Gen Z. And they will never reach out to ask someone how much something costs. If the information wasn't already on the website, they're just moving on to somebody else. And it's this. If you could see it, it would scare you how many people are moving on, right? And it's always a balance, right? You want to give people information, but you don't give them too much information.

So the thing that I speak about, Alayna, a lot comes back to that why? Which is not what do I do as a business, but how does that benefit you? Why should you choose me as opposed to why should you choose someone else? Because there's too much sameness out there. If I go on Amazon and I search for a product, I have the maybe the original product by the original manufacturer, and then I have 12 knockoffs that look exactly the same, and the prices are all, all different, right? We just had to get a new battery for our Dyson cordless vacuum, right? And then there's the Dyson one, there's this one. There's this one. This one's a best seller and this one's trending. And this one's what? And they're all look exactly the same. So, you know, why, what did I go with? I went with the one that had hundreds of reviews instead of the one that had 12. Because that's the other thing that we have access to, which is social proof. Because my network, when I was growing up, so if I.

If I was going to get a new bicycle, right, I had to go to the bicycle store, right? I couldn't go online and research it. I could look at my friends and see it. But if I was getting a new bike and they didn't have new bikes, I had nothing to do. Now we have this decision paralysis, right? Where we have so much information, how much information is enough to make our decision? So I think where it's affected us is people are afraid as a business to put information online for fear of losing a customer who will make a decision based upon a price without having other information. And what they don't realize is how many People can afford them, but there's no price, so they're passing them by altogether.

Yeah, absolutely. I myself am currently planning my own wedding right now and. Yeah, I know, so exciting. My fiance and I get married in September. But I am just like that, that client. I really do. If the price isn't online, I'm gonna go find somewhere where the price is. I think the difference, of course, some of the way that I was raised influences this, but I don't mind picking up the phone, which makes me a bit of an anomaly.

Right. So if you go off the stereotype and you assume, oh, Alayna never wants to talk on the phone, well, then you're going to miss out on a great conversation. I love talking on the phone. I call my grandma once a week, you know.

Right. Well, here's the thing. So many people who are older prefer to talk on the phone. Although I had a consultation with somebody the other day who is probably around your age, give or take a few years, and he prefers to get on the phone and talk to the clients. But these couples, who many of them don't want to, this is where they're missing out because there's the friction. Right. And I say it's not that the other Gen Ys, Gen Z won't get on the phone, it's that you're asking them to get on the phone immediately. So this is what will typically happen.

We've done a lot of secret shopping. I don't know if Kara told you this, but I've shopped over 500 companies between last year, 2023 and 2024. Okay. And we're still shopping more. So hundreds. We have hundreds of points of data. And the problem. Well, the first problem is that 18% of the companies we shopped never replied at all.

Okay. That's the first one.

Come on.

I don't know, but I don't know if you're experiencing that with you looking for wedding stuff for you or people not getting back to you. And then of the ones that do, over half of them are asking immediately for someone to get on the phone or come in for an appointment or a tour of a venue. So you. Let's talk about you as someone who's engaged, right? You reach out to get information and they say, you need to come in. What are you thinking? Are you thinking, I'm ready to come in? Are you thinking, sure, I'll come in. Are you thinking, slow down?

I'm thinking, well, let's see, what's. I'm a very structured person. I'M thinking, what's on the calendar this week? But also that might make me nervous. Talk a little bit about the prevalence of more of a mental health awareness awareness among clients and among me. I'm thinking, whoa, that went too fast. This is uncertain for me. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. This is new territory.

What matters to me is being able to enjoy this process. So I'm going to go with someone that goes a little bit slower. Well, if someone else who's motivated differently might do the exact opposite. But I'm thinking more about how I feel and how I feel is pressured, and so I'm not going to do that.

Right. So let's go back to the buckets again. What I like to say is that almost everything works some of the time. Nothing works all the time. Right. But it's true. And we get fooled because if 40% of the people that inquire, you respond the same way and say, get on the phone. And 40% get on the phone, you're like, well, that's the right way to do it.

When 60% are ghosting you and you're thinking, well, it's them, it's not me. No. It's just they're different. Right?

Yeah.

Even though, like I said, could be, could live in your town, have gone to your school, be brought up, go to the same house of worship or not or whatever, but yet you're different people and you shop differently. And, and we, this is the buckets again that we like to say. So you have to. I always say if it's not working, you have to look in the mirror because you have to start there. You don't blame the customer when it's not working. You say, well, they're not resonating with what I'm doing. And let's talk about the whole research thing. Right? You have access to information. So you and your fiance again, we're going to pick on you now because you, you, you, you let the cat out of the bag. You're engaged.

I know I did.

Right. So you're doing your research. How far along are you going in research before you reach out? As opposed to. Remember what I said with me, it used to be that if I needed information, I had to pick up the phone or go in because that was the only way to get it. Now, I'll give you a side story. We'll come back to this. So I sold cars a long, long, long time ago. Right.

And I just bought a car now. Well, long, long time ago. The only Way to get information about the car was to go to the car dealer and get the brochure. So you kind of were forced to show up at that car dealership, get the brochure, or maybe you went to an auto show and grabbed the brochure, but typically you'd have to do that. Now, I did all my information beforehand. Really the only thing I needed to do was to physically feel that car sit in that big. It was. Right.

I already knew how long it was. It would fit in my garage. Right. I already knew all that kind of stuff. And. And it was just like it was between two cars. Let me go drive them, because I can't do that online, Right? Yes, you probably virtually do that, but it's not the same. Right? It's not the same.

You probably could virtually do that.

Yeah, yeah. But again, if you want to actually feel the power, you need to get in the car and do that. So. But I had already done so much of that research by the time I went in that I had eliminated. I don't know how many cars are available these days, but I had eliminated all but basically three cars by the time I went in. And when I went in, I went in. And the only reason I didn't buy that day is because the snowstorm started. I bought the next day, but I.

We probably would have driven out that day with the car because I had done all of that research ahead of time. So this whole pressured thing, somebody reaches out and says, I'd like to get information which is not available. Right. Not on your website. Right. And they're immediately saying, call me. Right. Or when do you want to have a phone call? When do you want to zoom? When do you want to come in? When do you want to visit our venue? That's pressure, which I again call friction.

Right. You're adding friction to that process there. So what are some of the other ways that businesses could add friction like that?

It's a great, great question, I think. Well, one. I mean, I. There are two caterers that I can think of that I already walked away from because they said, great, when can you meet? And I actually even responded, here's a time. And then they never called me, so that who knows what the breakdown is in that. I'm like, oh, my gosh, ghosting. But I care so much about referrals. And this is kind of wild because I don't have a ton of.

Because I'm so young, I don't have a ton of friends who are married and recently got married in the Dallas area. And so I'm asking my friends for referrals and if they say that someone's, I'm looking for someone who's great and responsive and who understands my needs because I'm about to spend a lot of money. So I really am bringing kind of that selfish nature that some people assume that Gen Z is selfish. Like I'm bringing some of that selfish nature. But it's because of the stage of life and decision making that I'm in. So I think where the, where the friction is going to come in is that slow response time, not flexible in, in how I want to do things and that approach, I think expecting me to do certain things because I should and not communicating to me all the things that I don't know. I right now feel like the wedding industry is like cars going really, really fast on a highway. Right? It's, I'm like, I've never been on that highway before.

I don't know. Cars are just going fast and I'm just trying to get up to speed on my little on ramp over here and it feels too short. Like I like get up and I'm like, oh my gosh, there's so much going on over there. And so I want to take the next exit. That's what I'm doing when the speed of the vendor is different than the speed that I'm at. If you're not bringing me on that journey with you, I'm. I'm going to take the first exit. And that's how your clients feel when you don't have that client.

Maybe to use a business phrase, that onboarding experience. But think about it as that on ramp experience for your client right now.

That's so it's a great point. I try to get across a lot. And again, I don't know if you know, but I wrote a book called why Are They Ghosting Me? It's right here.

I love it.

Yeah. And a lot of it is what I speak about is that is you have to meet the customer where they are. So the first thing is how do they want to communicate? Right. You don't mind getting on the telephone. Matter of fact, you asked to get on the phone and they didn't call you back. My son got married last September and my daughter in law had the same experience. She reached out digitally to a company and said, I need a dance floor, I need some tables, I need popcorn machine stuff. Can I speak to somebody? And they said no, there's a catalog on our website.

Just figure out what you want and we'll make your proposal. And she said, I want to get on the phone. And they said no. Right. Which is crazy. Right. Because everybody else is trying to get somebody on the phone. And here you wanted to and they didn't.

And she wanted to and they didn't. But then you have people that don't want to get on the phone or can't get on the phone. It's. They, they're doing this surreptitiously at work or, or whatever. And they're texting, they're emailing their whatsapping, their Facebook messaging, their Instagram messaging, their TikTok. I don't know all the different ways that we can communicate these days. So how important is it or, or what does it say to, to somebody when you, they reach out a certain way and you immediately want to change the way that you're communicating?

Yeah. They just told you what matters to them. They just gave you the secret ingredient for motivating and winning them over and they offered it freely. Right. And you just took the other, like you almost took the exit on them in that conversation. I mean, I just think it's such a, such a miss there because again, let's go back to that obligation era is over. Just because you tell me I should communicate with you in your way doesn't mean that I will. I'm immediately going to ask why.

Why is that important? But here's the thing. There are so many, there's so much information that I have, I've done so much research, I'm just not even going to bother with that conversation. I'm going to go find the person that already understood what mattered to me. They answered my question before I even asked on why this is important. I'm going to go with them.

So if you're listening here and you're still saying they need to get on the phone if they want to do business with me, the business, they need to get on the phone. That's the obligation. Right. You're saying that they're obligated to do that. Something that I've pointed out a lot is by the time they reach out, they've already eliminated almost everybody else. Right. Like you're not reaching out to 20 different caterers. You've already, you've made your short list.

Right. How many were. Were on the list? The first list, Because I know you've eliminated a couple because they eliminated themselves. How many were on that list that you said, I'm going to reach out to these for information?

10.

10. Okay.

Initially.

Okay.

I went. I went big, and then I quickly shrunk that down to six. Okay, wait, did you all reach down to six?

Oh, reach out to six. Okay.

I did the initial for all. Sorry. I reached out to all ten. Four. Ghosted me. So then I'm down to six.

Okay. All right, so now. Now let's. Let's go to the ghosting thing for a second here. You're right. Now you and I are ghosting somebody, right? We saw the email. We were just busy, right? Like, I got to get on this thing with Alan now, and then something else is going to come up and the cat's going to come up, and then something's going to come up and that email is going to get buried. If that business reaches out to you again tomorrow, do you consider that aggressive or helpful? So let's say you went to a caterer's website, you filled out their contact form, and then you got busy, right? Something came up.

And phone calls and fires are burning and you're doing all kinds of stuff, and you don't get back to them today. And then you're busy tomorrow morning, but they email you again and say, hey, Alayna, you know, you reached out to us. Do you consider that aggressive or do you consider that helpful?

I do. I think my default is I go to aggressive. Okay. And I like to. For me, it's so weird how we have these things. For me, my sweet spot is like three days. Give me a few days to get to it. Like, just a few.

Where I came up with that. I don't know. We're all motivated differently. I seriously, I'm like, going deep into the roots of where did that come from? But that's for me, my definition is like, give me a couple days and then I'll respond. But I will say, I just got a really helpful email. It said, hey, so and so sent you these documents to sign. I got my first email over the holidays. I didn't.

I celebrate Christmas. I did not get to that. Sorry, my account for a second. I celebrate Christmas. I did not get to that initial email. I was so happy when the second email came through five days later and said, hey, don't forget so. And so I said, oh, thank goodness. Oh, I needed that information.

So to me, that was helpful. That little nudge a little bit later.

Okay. Okay. So the idea of following up is good. Your idea of tomorrow. Now, when I tell people to follow up tomorrow, it's, hey, just in case this got caught by spam. Did you see this? So it's not that's the way I'm couching it. Right? Because let's face it, I. I just looked at my spam folder and I just saw something that shouldn't be there.

Right. It happens to all of us. So that's the way that I do. So following now, let's. Let's talk about this. Let's say you still didn't respond to that. Right? Because at the time that that came in, something else is. Is important how many times again, remember? Because let me go back to the beginning.

You started this. Like, you went to their website. You like what you saw. You are. You saw their ad. You're on the knot, wedding wire, Zola, whatever. You. You made an inquiry.

They inquired. They. You saw their response. You couldn't respond. You were busy. Okay? Priorities. It's. What happens to all of us is priorities. Okay? 9 inches of snow comes to Dallas. The world shuts down. There you go. Okay. They follow up, whether it's the next day, three days later, or whatever. And when that happens, something else is burning now. Some other fire is burning now. Okay.

Do you want that company to nudge you again?

Here's the thing. I'm okay with it because I. I reached out first. Right. This wasn't a cold call. I reached out.

You started this.

I started this. They're helping me out. Oh my gosh. Wedding planning is not my full time job. Right, right, right. So I really don't mind that nudge. But here's where the people who have won me over in that nudge. This is for me, Alayna.

Doesn't mean I'm speaking on behalf of everyone like me. Right, Right is where they say, hey, just in case, in case you missed this, where they acknowledge that there might be other things that are important to me, pulling my attention, matter to me, because for me, I'm. I do this for work all the time. I talk to people, I communicate back and forth. But for someone who doesn't interact as much with strangers and they think of everyone around them as strangers, this could be daunting. Like, oh, well, you know what? I. I'm just not even going to worry about that right now. I just think I say that, and I've said that a couple times because I really see that so prevalently is more of this.

I don't. Others, especially those who did not finish high school or college pre pandemic, have a different level of interaction and what they. What their norm is for how they communicate and how often. Right. You mentioned TikTok messages and instant messages. Right? That's my brother who is younger than me. That is his default versus my default is a little bit more of what I do every day from a work perspective. So just want to make that acknowledgement that the more you get to know someone, the more you understand.

Oh, that's why they think like that or do that. And I think that worry about social interactions is higher in my brother, his friends, and those who graduated just even years after me.

Right, right. So again, if somebody reaches out digitally, they're telling you, I want to communicate digitally. Unless they specifically say, hi, I'd like to arrange an appointment or I'd like to have a phone call, whatever. So speaking of which, let's talk about a contact form. You've been, you've been looking at websites, you've been seeing contact forms, phone number required field, not required field, not required field in.

Unless you ask me the question about text. Right. How would you like me to get a hold of you text or email then? Obviously, if I check text, I'm going to expect that you need my phone number

Right.

But if I tell you.

Right, that's required because you're saying text. Right. So it's actually something that you're. You're validating something I've had on. So Mark Chapman's been on a few times for me. Mark has got a company called the I do Society, which is social ads for wedding professionals. And he said when they put the text, the wording, put your phone number, if you prefer texting on that field, 80% more people gave the phone number. What we find a lot in our secret shopping is the phone field is required with nothing that says, do you prefer email text? It's just a required field if you don't want to talk on the phone.

And again, you said you're more likely to do it because also during in your business life, you talk on the phone. So talking on the phone is not uncomfortable for you the way it might be for other people. But making that phone number field required, you could be missing out on inquiries for people. Like, I'm not giving you that. Right. I'm just not going to give you that. We know that statistically every field you add to a contact form, less people fill it out. Right.

What have you seen in your. In your wedding shopping? And we'll wrap this up on contact forms. Like, you're looking at a contact form and what have you seen in terms of information? They're asking that you're like, really like, you need to know that now.

Okay, this one might be controversial. But the date of the wedding, early on I did not have the date of the wedding and it was a required field.

Right.

And I also that made me think, well, I know this, I'm way ahead of time. Earlier, not now, but earlier. I was way ahead of time on planning. And so I thought, well, I don't want them to put me at the bottom of their list just because my wedding so far away. I'm trying to get this stuff done now. So wedding date was one and I think the kind of the impersonality of it and inquiry form overall, I get it. We have one of those at Magnet Culture. It is to help us make sure we capture everything right.

We don't want it to get lost. But at the end, someone from our team will reach out to you in this amount of time. Let's add the human element back in. So that's where so much of that ghosting happens is I said, well, did I even fill that out? I didn't get a confirmation email that I filled that out. And was it that my wedding was a later date or was it because I didn't fill in the blank with my request? Right. There's just, it's either it's like they ask me so much information or so little. I'm wondering if a human being is even looking at this.

Right. Well, this is why getting back to somebody quickly is important. You know, not an auto response, but a real response. Uh, but that balance between how much do you need now? Interestingly, with, with wedding date, when you're early in the process, you might not have a date. You might have a, like a month, a season, I don't know, I don't care.

Vibe, as others might say. You have a vibe somewhere around then, right?

Somewhere around then. And I, for venues, I, I often say you're, you're making someone put a date. Are you giving them a chance to say I'm flexible? Right. A checkbox that says I'm flexible or first choice or second choice or as one of my clients does, what season are you looking for? Right. So you just leaving it open because unless you've booked a house of worship first, where now you have a date. Like my niece did that, right. She booked the second largest cathedral in the United States for her wedding. And that was going to be it.

That night was going to be the reception, right. It wasn't going to be another day. It was going to be. That night happened to be a gap because the Mass was at 2 o'clock and we had a long time running around in tuxedos and evening gowns, but that's another story. So again, contact form enough to start a conversation. And then I think what I've heard you say is that it needs to be personal, it needs to be conversational so that you don't feel like it's just this. There's going to be a transaction, but it shouldn't feel transactional. That's the way that I like to talk about.

Okay, all right, so. So last words from a Gen Z. I just put you in a bucket. Last words from a Gen Z to the people listening about. Actually, just real quick, let's talk about this now. Actually, no, we're going to come back and talk about this. We're going to talk about Gen Zs as employees. Okay, last word.

As a Gen Z getting married to people who are businesses of that. What, what do you want to leave them with?

All of your clients have different motivations, so I don't want you to have misheard me that we all fall into a bucket of the same motivation. But we, your clients, especially your Gen Z clients, really care about what's in it for them. And if you don't give them that information, they will find it somewhere else. They have access to the world at their fingertips. I have access to all the information that I need and if you don't provide that and you don't meet my needs and my demands, some of you might think, oh, it's a high maintenance person. But if you don't meet my demands as a client, I am going to go somewhere else and then I'm happy to talk about. I'll let you ask your question, but talk about how that shows up for employees as well.

Yeah, actually I think we're going to talk about that with Kara. So from Magna Culture, we're going to talk about that. Alayna, thank you so much for sharing your personal story as well as the idea here. Let's get rid of these buckets and just treat people as people. Let's not treat everybody the same, regardless of fill in the blank that we know about them, their age, where they live, where they went to school, their culture, whatever. I'm speaking at the Inclusive Wedding Summit, which I think this might come out after that. But we're talking about inclusivity in all different ways, which also I think younger people are more aware of maybe you know, than older people. So thank you for joining us.

The show notes we'll have how to get a hold of you, how to follow you, all of that and wish you a lot of luck with your wedding. And if you need any referrals, there's a few people there might be able to help you.

Thanks so much, Alan.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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