Wedding Business Solutions

The 4 Steps to More sales!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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The 4 Steps to More sales!

Are you missing out on bookings by skipping important steps? What if the reason you’re getting ghosted is because you’re rushing couples or communicating on your terms, not theirs? In this episode I break down the four-step sales cycle—getting attention, receiving an inquiry, starting the conversation, and finally making the sale. Could making small changes to how you follow up or begin conversations be the key to getting more “yes” answers?

Listen to this new 8-minute episode for a clear roadmap to more sales and practical tips on how to move clients from inquiry to booking—without losing them along the way.

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 

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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.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

What are the four steps to more Sales? Listen to this episode, Find out. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. This is something that I've spoken about and written about for a long time, but I don't know that I've ever spoken about it on the podcast here. And that's the four steps to more sales, or the sales circle the sales cycle, if you will. I even have on these, if you're watching on video, even have these postcards that I give out at conference and stuff about my sales training and all. But it talks about the four steps here. So let's go through what those are, because they're the same four steps for pretty much every business in the world, actually.

So the first is getting someone's attention. If you don't have their attention, they don't know you exist. If they don't know you exist, nothing else happens. So how do you get somebody's attention? You get their attention by advertising, marketing, networking, signage, the way you wrap your vehicle with about your company. Right. Any way that someone can find out about you, which includes, if you're doing weddings and events, people who are guests at that event, they're going to find out about you potentially as well. So that's first is getting someone's attention. The second is getting an inquiry.

Now you get an inquiry because someone reaches out to you and says, I'm interested in whatever. Now this is different than cold calling, because with cold calling, you're trying to get their attention and kind of get the inquiry at the same time because you're the one reaching out to them. So pretty much here we're talking about when, when customers reach out to you because they found out about you or they need you. I know, I've spoken about this called the zero moment of truth. That's at the first point that someone realizes they need something or someone to do something. That's the zero moment of truth. And that's where you want to be as close to, to get their attention. You want to be where they're looking when they realize they need a product or service like yours.

So forgetting about cold calling here, right, that's a whole different discussion. When someone makes an inquiry, which could be in the old days, they walk into your storefront or they pick up the phone and they call you. Now it's, yep, they could still do those things, but they're more likely to fill out a contact form, email you, text you, SMS, WhatsApp, you message you through Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or any other messaging platform out there that you have, the Not Wedding wire. Anyway, all these different ways they can reach out. They're making the inquiry now. Now think about that. When they make the inquiry, they're not inquiring with everyone that does what you do. That's at the first stage, when you're getting their attention.

Everybody else who's trying to get their attention is there. And that's all that noise, right? You're trying to break through that noise and be the one that they reach out, be the one that they see, right? And then want to reach out based upon what they've seen. So when they make that inquiry, you're in that small group, that handful that are now, you know, you're competing against. Now some people, it's. You're the only one. They reach out to you because you're the only one they want. And unless you blow that, you're going to get that gig. Not always that way, even with referrals.

Not always that way, because they might have been referred to some other good companies as well, or been exposed to other good companies as a guest at other events, right? So you get the inquiry and then the conversation has been started. And that's an important point. You're not trying to start a conversation. The conversation has already been started by them reaching out to you. At that point, you get to have this conversation more likely digitally initially than the phone or in person at first. And then you might get the right to get that in person, that phone call, that zoom call or whatever. And that's when you get to make the sale or you don't get to make the sale, and then you have to follow up about making the sale. So those are the four steps.

Getting their attention, getting the inquiry, having a conversation, making a sale. And the key is you can't jump. You can't jump from getting their attention to having a conversation they have. They're making the inquiry or you're the one cold calling at that point. You're trying to start that conversation. But when they've done that, this is the point that so many wedding and event pros are blowing it right now because you're trying to rush the process. You're trying to rush from that inquiry right, to the way you want to communicate, which is phone, zoom, in person, when they don't want to do that. I saw this video the other day.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on another episode video. It was on the CNBC website or on their Instagram feed. I Think it was where Gen Z has telephobia. Like, they're actually afraid of making phone calls. They don't know how to make phone calls. And I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he said, yeah, his teenage daughter, she had to do something. He said, okay, so call. And she says, what do I do? He said, well, pick up the phone and call.

What do I say? He said, just. Just talk to them about what you want to. But I don't know what to say. Right. They've grown up communicating and having conversations, but not necessarily on the phone. So if you're dealing with people, and this is not just the Gen Z thing, and I don't like to put people into the boxes, right. That everybody now is Gen Z, everybody's like that. It's not true.

Same with millennials. Every millennial is not. The younger millennials now and the older Gen Z's now, those are your couples who are getting married. And they've grown up in a world where communicating didn't necessarily involve the phone. So rushing somebody to something that's uncomfortable for them is going to get them to ghost you. And if you're getting ghosted a lot, when you reach out, they've reached out to you, you respond and you ask for that call. That's probably one of the biggest reasons why is you're rushing to that. Because they don't see the need yet.

I say yet because when you show them that it's in their best interest and it's going to benefit them, not benefit you, because that's the way it is. When you say, hey, thanks for reaching out. When do you want to get on the phone? That's benefiting you, not them, Right? You have to earn that right in there. So these are the four steps to more sales. And it doesn't matter if you're selling dog walking services, right? Still, they have to get their attention. Somebody makes an inquiry, you have a conversation, then you get to make the sale. It's the same thing if you're selling private airplanes, right? You're selling, you know, jet airplanes. You have to get someone's attention, they make an inquiry, have a conversation, make the sale.

Again, not cold calling. That's a whole different thing there. So just think about this process there. And you want to minimize the loss at every stage because we're all losing people at every stage, right? We lose by not getting their attention because we're not where they were looking, right? So if you choose not to be on a particular website, let's say you choose not to be on wedding wire and somebody's looking on wedding wire for their wedding vendors, you've chosen not to be there, you don't get the retention, you lose out over there. It's the same with any, anything else. If they were looking on TikTok or, or Instagram or whatever and you, you didn't come up. Right, so we're all losing there. Then when they make the inquiry, some people are making it too difficult.

Too difficult. I can see websites all the time that say, book us now, book us now with buttons. They're not ready to book you, they're ready to ask more information. You're losing people at that point as well. And then by not having the conversation initially the way that they reach out and more importantly by not following up because they may not respond to your first or your second or your third. I was just talking to somebody before and he said it's his fifth message that gets the most response. Right. So if you're giving up after one or two, you're missing out over there.

And then you can blow it by not asking the right questions, by not talking about results that only you can do. There's different ways you can blow it at the conversation so you don't get the sale. But those are the four steps to more sales. And again, if you're watching on video, here it is. If you see me at a conference, these will be at my table. Come, they're free to come and get them. And you can have this cycle over here, this sales cycle where this, this is the four steps to more sales. But think about that.

Don't rush that. Think about yourself as a consumer. When people try to rush it with you, they're losing you at each of these points. Right? Some people never got your attention. Some people, you didn't make the inquiry. Some, you know, the way they reached out, you didn't like it or they didn't follow up. And some you didn't get to the sale because you liked somebody else better. So that's the four steps.

Keep that in mind as you're doing whatever it is that you're doing to, to get more business. And again, I think the biggest opportunity is always going to be following up. Follow up with the leads you're already getting. It's much easier than trying to find a new lead. So do that. Well, I hope this helps. Thanks.


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.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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