By Paul Pannone
It’s rare you find a brain that works at all, much less as brilliantly as some of the Wedding Water Cooler members; especially its founder, Christine Boulton. Most women don’t care for Boulton’s brashness and that she makes sense when she speaks– and guys are mostly intimidated by her perception and ability to call it like it is. But Boulton does what she does without compunction. She rarely looks back and never takes any credit for her work. That’s why we’re taking a look.
eWedNewz watches Boulton as she moved away from a subscription-based format in 2010 to sharing her knowledge in open forums.
“What I do is give facts to my clients and along the way build websites; social media platforms and get everything to work in concert; to maximize results and create an often forgotten little thing called profit,” she tells eWedNewz.
Over the weekend– she works many of them– Boulton re-released a story she’d written in 2009 while we were in the depths of the worst economic crash since The Great Depression of the 1930′s. In her post she wrote;
“I was looking at my stats today and found an old article that was trending so I read it to see why. Well, I didn’t find the answer to that question but I did find something else interesting.
If you are a new follower then you may not know that in the beginning Think was a subscription only website. There are a few gems that never made it to the free side, this is one of them. Originally published in March 2009 in the early days of the Great Recession, I can’t believe how prophetic it was. The lessons in it are still important.”
But just how important, Boulton leaves to other to decide. Like other true wedding experts, Boulton is often asked her for her opinions on many topics involving the wedding business and how to market to the bride. But unlike other so-called experts (See Chris Jaeger), Boulton comes up with her own, creative ideas and doesn’t copy-cat others or poach their work.
Christine Nostradamus Boulton called the shakeout in the wedding business back in 2009.
In the Water Cooler Boulton maintains a higher level of standards and often runs from rants that lead to nowhere. On several occasions she’s had to step in and give her views to help put the train back on the tracks after a derailment.
“That’s difficult to do because the only rule we have is, there are no rules. But that being the case, I too can interject my own opinions and they’re usually taken very seriously and in the spirit it’s given,” says Boulton.
Recent books written by Ms. Nostradamus called on her talents as a successful wedding vendor; she was a cake maker. Boulton connects to her audiences as one of them, simply because she is a vendor at heart. In her first book, Bridal Show Success, Boulton gives the one-on-one experience of Bridal Shows high marks but noticed how many exhibitors weren’t taking full advantage of the opportunity; so she wrote a book about it.
Most recently she wrote a book called Brilliant Wedding Marketing. Boulton reports the books, separately and as a set, are selling well.
Boulton correctly predicted the events we’re seeing today back in 2009 and has often referred back to her stories in conversations and interviews with eWedNewz. This one caught our attention:
“What’s Dangerous Is Not To Evolve”
That is a recent quote from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.
People are always picking my brain about the wedding industry; how to grow their business, what steps to take, how to survive right now. That kind of thing. I think what Bezos said is the key for every small business, particularly in our industry.
You look around at the changes that are taking place right now. Look at this month’s Facts and Stats column. For the first time in recent memory the overall value of the wedding market is in decline and it looks like it will not fully recover until 2012. If you sit around on your hands and try and wait it out, hoping things will go back to the way they were you are in for a rude awakening. What are you doing to evolve?
I come on here every month with thoughts and ideas on how to grow your business. Ways to fine tune and tweak. How many of them have you implemented? What is stopping you? I watch some of the people that have come to me for advice actually use it. I am watching their market value grow every day.
The ones that are winning aren’t taking one little idea and trying it once. They are taking the body of advice and using it to formulate their own transformation. They are changing what they do and how they do it on a fundamental level. They are doing it deliberately and fearlessly and they are succeeding. What are you doing?
For Christine Boulton and other wedding marketers that come up with their own great ideas, the sky is the limit. For the other 95%…. it may be time to move on to something else.
eWedNewz continues to watch Fairy Dust speaker/marketers and will have much more to say in the coming months.
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