Wedding Business Solutions

What you want vs what you need!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Are you chasing more leads when you should be chasing better results from the ones you already have? What if improved follow up, not just more inquiries, could be the key to growing your wedding business profits? In this episode, I share why focusing on conversion—not quantity—might be what your business truly needs and how systems, automation, or just persistence can make all the difference.

Listen to this new 10-minute episode for practical ways to follow up smarter, boost sales without extra ad spend, and squeeze more profits out of the leads you already have.

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.

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

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

What you want versus what you need. Listen to this episode. See what I'm talking about. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. This is a note that I made for myself to do in a future episode—what you want versus what you need. You want more leads.

What you need is better conversion. I'm actually in the middle right now, as you’re listening to this, of preparing my presentation for Wedding MBA on conversion. I’m also doing this in Ireland and in London before Wedding MBA. I meet so many people who are chasing more and more leads, but more leads just give you more people to follow up with, and it makes it worse because you feel like you’re drowning. So how can you possibly keep up with the old leads?

That’s one of the reasons that I had AED El on talking about the AI they’ve created—an AI that actually responds to leads because it never gets tired, never complains, never forgets. It keeps the conversation going. But so many people are chasing more leads, throwing more money at TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms, trying to get more leads while ignoring the ones they already have.

At this point, we’ve secret-shopped probably 800 companies or more over the last few years, and it’s amazing that the average number of follow-ups is two or less. That means you reply to an inquiry once, maybe a second time, and then stop. Only about half even send a second follow-up. Meanwhile, there are companies doing three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and more. DJ Marek in South Dakota follows up 14 times.

He used to do two. Came to one of my workshops in Vegas and started doing 10. Came again, started doing 14. I quote him in one of my presentations because he got a sale recently from the ninth follow-up, and the bride apologized to him for not having responded sooner. I hear that all the time—couples apologizing because they saw your messages but you weren’t their priority at the moment. They don’t say they’re busy, they just don’t respond.

And let’s face it, right now every one of us is ghosting somebody. So you don’t need more inquiries if you’re not following up with the ones you have. It’s so much easier to follow up with the people already in your inbox than to go get another lead.

I got an email this morning from someone who’s been following my advice about follow-up and just made a sale because of persistence. The inquiry was old, there had been ghosting, but the follow-up worked. You have that same potential—sales and profits sitting in your inbox if you would just go back to them again.

More leads are not your friend. Better follow-up is your friend. When the number of leads goes down, better follow-up will still squeeze more sales out of them.

In my presentation, I use simple math. If you get 100 leads, how many of them turn into a conversation instead of ghosting? How many go from that digital conversation—email, text, message—to a phone call, Zoom, or in-person meeting? And how many of those turn into a sale? Those are the steps you need to track.

If you take 100 people and only 30 of them engage in conversation, what happens if you can get that to 40? Or 50? Or 60? Every improvement down the line increases sales.

When VenueX AI was building reporting, I said I wanted to show the full funnel—where leads come from, how many turn into conversations, how many into tours, and how many into sales. Even the AI gets ghosted, but around 60% still engage in conversations. It continues to follow up automatically.

So—are you getting 60%? Do you even know? Many people don’t. They’re guessing. You need the real numbers. There are always sales you’re never going to get, and that’s okay. You can’t handle every lead anyway. Every business has capacity limits—dates booked, staff availability, production volume. You’re not supposed to get every inquiry.

The goal is to reduce the number of poor-quality inquiries and improve the follow-up for the good ones. If you’re giving up after one or two follow-ups, you’re leaving money on the table and handing it to a competitor.

The good news? Most of your competitors aren’t doing it well either. The bar is low. You just need to do it better. You don’t need to run faster than the bear—just faster than the slowest person.

Doing it better might mean three or four follow-ups. It doesn’t have to be ten. But if you can automate it, use AI, or dedicate time for it, you’ll squeeze more out of the leads you already have.

I’ll go back to people again and again. My own system follows up eight times before giving up, spread over two months. I’m considering adding a ninth and tenth follow-up. Very few companies get that far—single digits out of hundreds we’ve tested. So if I do eight, I’m already in rare air.

How soon are you giving up? Are you focused on the wrong thing—more leads instead of better follow-up? Yes, there’s a cost in time and money, but so is advertising for more leads. And that only makes the problem worse if you’re not following up on the ones you have.

Think about the opportunity cost—the lost revenue from not following up. If your calendar isn’t full of the clients you want, the potential sales are already in your inbox.

You just need to learn how to follow up better. I’ve written books about this—Why Are They Ghosting Me?, Stop Selling and Help Them Buy. Go back through this podcast archive. There are over 350 short episodes, and you can use my AI tools—Ask Alan Anything or VenueX AI—to help you automate and improve follow-up.

What you want versus what you need. Be careful what you wish for—you might get it. More leads can make you feel like you’re drowning. Focus first on learning to follow up better and then build systems to do it. That’s where your profits are—without spending more on lead generation.

You might even be able to spend less over time as your conversion improves. I want you to be more efficient so you can profit more.

You don’t need more leads. You need better conversion. Thanks for listening.


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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