Ever wondered about the risks couples are taking when entrusting their big day to a wedding planner with no formal education? This episode grapples with this substantial issue, spotlighting the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on experience alone, and the discomfort it could breed in couples investing their hard-earned thousands into their celebrations. We challenge the trend of stepping into this industry without comprehensive training, and ponder whether the lack of an educational investment is worth the potential damage to one's reputation and career, not to mention a couple's once-in-a-lifetime event.
We extend this discussion to talk more about the significance of formal education in the wedding planning industry and the potential repercussions of leaning on on the job. We shed light on the legal implications of training independent contractors, as well as the criticality of honesty and openness. Delve into the rampant phenomenon of misguided advice in an online context, and how it could tarnish a planner's reputation even before the inception of their career. Moreover, we stress the importance of affiliating with supportive organizations that can guide a planner on their professional journey.
Closing on an optimistic note, we discuss the virtues of joining the Certified Wedding Planner Society, and the advantages of owning an official certification in the industry. We reiterate the importance of a legit certification to assure couples that they are in good hands. Plus, we reflect on the value of a supportive network akin to a family, and the benefits of networking with a wider community of wedding planners. Tune in for this enlightening and thought-provoking conversation that just might change your perspective on the wedding planning industry.
www.cwpsociety.com | info@cwpsociety.com | IG: @cwpsociety | FB: @cwpsociety
Ever wondered about the risks couples are taking when entrusting their big day to a wedding planner with no formal education? This episode grapples with this substantial issue, spotlighting the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on experience alone, and the discomfort it could breed in couples investing their hard-earned thousands into their celebrations. We challenge the trend of stepping into this industry without comprehensive training, and ponder whether the lack of an educational investment is worth the potential damage to one's reputation and career, not to mention a couple's once-in-a-lifetime event.
We extend this discussion to talk more about the significance of formal education in the wedding planning industry and the potential repercussions of leaning on on the job. We shed light on the legal implications of training independent contractors, as well as the criticality of honesty and openness. Delve into the rampant phenomenon of misguided advice in an online context, and how it could tarnish a planner's reputation even before the inception of their career. Moreover, we stress the importance of affiliating with supportive organizations that can guide a planner on their professional journey.
Closing on an optimistic note, we discuss the virtues of joining the Certified Wedding Planner Society, and the advantages of owning an official certification in the industry. We reiterate the importance of a legit certification to assure couples that they are in good hands. Plus, we reflect on the value of a supportive network akin to a family, and the benefits of networking with a wider community of wedding planners. Tune in for this enlightening and thought-provoking conversation that just might change your perspective on the wedding planning industry.
www.cwpsociety.com | info@cwpsociety.com | IG: @cwpsociety | FB: @cwpsociety
Welcome to the Wedding Planner podcast. This is our Career Support Series, brought to you by the Certified Wedding Planner Society, the world's leading wedding planner certification program and the world's largest membership of certified wedding planners. My name is Laurie Hartwell and I am the founder and CEO of the Certified Wedding Planner Society. I'm joined by my fabulous vice president, chrissy Thomas, and owner of Southern Sparkle Weddings. Hey, chrissy.
Speaker 2:I'm Laurie and hello to all of our listeners. So today I'm Laurie, not going to be posing a question today to you guys. Should a wedding planner rely on experience alone or education plus experience?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this is a really good question. I think this is where we should definitely start a lot of conversations with a lot of planners, because you know as you probably are too, chrissy I'm a part of a lot of groups and forums on Facebook and other platforms where wedding planners are talking, and a lot of times, wedding planners will ask like hey, I was thinking about getting my certification in planning and I was wondering what you guys think of it, and some of the answers that some wedding planners give I'm usually just completely floored by. Some of them are like oh girl, you don't need to get certified, just get, make sure you have a contract and get some experience. My question here is like Okay, so what does that mean? Can you provide them with any additional information? For instance, you know, where should they get this contract from?
Speaker 1:What causes should they have in the contract? Do they even understand what those causes mean and how? They may or may not even hold up in a court of law? And where should they get this experience? How should they get this experience? Is someone just going to be our guinea pig? How many couples are going to be our guinea pigs until we get this right? And that's kind of where I'm coming from. A lot of times, chrissy, what are your?
Speaker 2:thoughts. That was literally my first thought. When you say, oh, you just need to get experience. And that's the Michael next question Okay, so where am I getting this experience? And who am I potentially going to ruin by me getting that experience? Like you said, it's getting pigs that's the best way to describe this when you were just relying on gaining experience through booking clients and having weddings only and not getting some type of base of education. These engaged couples end up being your guinea pigs and this could either go really great, hopefully, or this could go really bad. And that is what scares me about. When I see this answer and I see them say, no, you don't need any education at all, just get experience. That's my first thought. Are these engaged couples yeah, mishaps may have taken place on their wedding day because someone is just trying to gain experience and they don't have that base of an education.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you have to think about too. You know, in many of these certification programs I know, at least for our certification program we talk about business strategies. We talk about the right pricing structure. We talk about what should be included in your packages. We talk about what you should and shouldn't do. There you know how to conduct initial consultations.
Speaker 1:We talk about it all so that our couples you know, so that when our planners are meeting these couples, that the couples aren't feeling like they are not with a professional. We want our couples to know that when they are hiring a wedding planner, that they are hiring someone who has invested in themselves, because how can we expect a couple to invest in us if we refuse to invest in ourselves? And that kind of just it just circles in my mind like I'm like okay, so why is it that we are okay with telling people you don't need to get any education in this career path that you are wanting to go into? Like there's this industry you want to go into and now you don't feel like you you need to get any education.
Speaker 2:It's wild to me because I feel like this is very wedding industry related A lot of the career paths in our industry don't necessarily have to have some formal education in order to start that career. With a photographer, you can wake up one day and buy a nice camera and say, okay, I'm going to shoot weddings now with the DJ. You know what? Let me get some equipment, probably even barely that, let me get my phone and some speakers, and now I'm a wedding DJ With planners. Let me just, you know, read a couple blogs, read a magazine and get some experience, and now I'm a phenomenal wedding planner. It's wild to me that there is no type of formal whether it's education or just some type of path that is required in our industry and there's just not.
Speaker 1:And I think it should think about how much money couples are spending on their weddings. And yeah, we have a lower end, but even the lower end is like around $20,000. And then we have the high end, which is into the millions. Okay, so most everybody fits kind of in between there someplace. So in between $40,000 and $80,000 is pretty much an average across the United States of what couples are paying for their weddings.
Speaker 1:Now, if, are you, as the wedding planner, who does not believe that education is worthwhile, are you telling these people who are about to spend $40,000 to $80,000 on their wedding that you don't believe in educating yourself, and are you telling them that you're kind of just trying to get some experience and that you hope everything turns out okay?
Speaker 1:Are you letting them know that? And if so, I hope that you're willing to do your job at absolutely no fee, unless it turns out to be wonderful. And so because, honestly, if you put me in that position, if you put me in the situation as the couple, the potential couple, and you said to me now, on average, you're gonna be spending X amount of dollars for your wedding, and I want you to know that I have not taken any formal education on this job. I have taken zero training and I'm just trying to get experience. And I'm still going to charge you, though, for this. And how do you feel about me, you know, doing this job for you, knowing that I have not invested in myself at all? I doubt that I would be like oh yeah, no, I totally believe in you.
Speaker 1:And I'd be like no thanks, because let's think about you. Know all these other industries, Chrissy, that do have training, that you have to go through in order to even become that you know. Take that career path. So I think about my hairstylist. They had to go to school to become a hairstylist. My esthetician had to go to school to become one.
Speaker 1:Nails technicians have to go to school in order to do nails. A dog rumor has to go to school before they can become a dog rumor. A real estate agent before they can sell a home, they have to go through some education and pass a test before they can start selling that real estate. Barista's at Starbucks have to go through some sort of training before they can make a cup of latte, right. So it is a very, very important part of any career choice Okay, not to mention doctors and what they have to go through To get that training. It's so important to get that training, that education. Have that foundational information in your brain so that you can take that information that you've learned and then apply it to your career, your business, and make it unique and curate your business specifically to you. But without it, you are basically an octopus on rubber skates.
Speaker 2:And what's wild, lori, when you mentioned all of these different career paths, all of this training, nine times out of 10 took place before they got to their first client. So that dog rumor did some training with probably a fake dog the hairstylist. They have the mannequin, but they do all of that prep and all of that training and then they get in front of a client, whereas we're telling people, or I'm seeing in these forums, just get your training with the clients. On the job Get on the job, on the training.
Speaker 1:How does your couple feel about that? Do they know? And I don't know. Listen, I'm all about getting your experience. I'm just not about getting experience without education. I think the education has to come with the experience and it should not be experience all by itself. I'm just a firm believer in that, because even people who have gone through our certification program and, and I'm sure, other certification programs have, can say the same thing. I'm about to say that even people who have X amount of years of experience let's say up up to 30 years of experience, like myself Would say and have said to us wow, I learned a lot actually going through your program. Sometimes we get the I love confirming that I was doing things correctly, because they know that our certification is more than a piece of paper. It's membership for life. It's these lifetime free benefits that they are getting. That includes Continuing education, month after month after month, and so many other amazing benefits that we offer. But it is, it's so important that that, no matter what level experience you are, you have your education as that foundation that you're building everything on, and that you're not just relying on YouTube videos to get the information that you are hoping for right, like you know, for instance, I recently Made some donuts from some homemade donuts at home.
Speaker 1:Now, I did not go to school to become a A Baker, okay, but, and let me tell you what I will never do I I took well, let me tell you what I did do. So I I learned how to. I read recipe, I read instructions, took me about three minutes how to make these particular donuts. My first batch turned out. They looked like Scary, scary donuts, like they was the scariest. Now they tasted excellent. I still ate them, but I didn't take any pictures of them. If you know what I'm saying Get on your gram.
Speaker 1:It did not make it to Instagram at all. So I was. You know I Though would not have Once I learned how. Oh, okay, I'm gonna do this this way next time. So I just made donuts again recently with the proper Equipment night and they turned out. They look so cute and so pretty. But you know what I'm not gonna do? I'm not gonna offer my services. I'm not going to put, make, create a website and say Donuts for sale. I am now a baker because I did not go to culinary school. I did not learn how to do things the best in the best possible way. I don't feel like that was it. You know me. Just having a good go at it once or twice Is enough for me. That a little bit of experience is enough for me to sell my services now, without a formal education that can back up what I'm trying to sell. Does that make sense, chrissy?
Speaker 2:That makes perfect sense. And what I want to mention too, is that when we're when we're saying education, we're not saying that you have to go to college to get your degree Four years, but we're saying some type of whether it's a certification program, some type of training, some type of education that's going to give you the tools that you need to not mess up someone's wedding day right, like you mentioned. Or your donuts you got. You made your batch the first. Go around, taste it good, but they weren't pretty. Oh, you made your second batch. We don't get a second batch on wedding.
Speaker 2:It's a Thing. So if you mess things up on a wedding day, there's no do-overs for our clients. There just isn't, and that is that's the part that, I think, scares me the most.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are no do-overs. You're right, and that that is a scary, scary thing, and you know. On top of of that, it is Important to to note too that some people say, well, no, when I say experience, I mean work for someone else and get experience and train, get hands-on training from someone while you're working under someone else. Okay, so let's talk about that. Let's break that down real quick. Most of the time was happening with those people. Those are wedding planners that are hiring independent contractors and Are miss clear classifying that worker, because unless you bring that particular Worker on as an employee, you're actually not allowed to train them, you're not allowed to teach them how to do the job, because an independent contractor is supposed to be just that Independent, already coming in with the knowledge and know-how and can do the job independent of any instruction. Okay, so that is illegal to do.
Speaker 1:To train people as they're going through, you need to have other training. That means an actual Company that specializes in training of wedding planners, the, the educating of wedding planners. It is so, so important, because otherwise the IRS is going to penalize you, you're going to have to pay back taxes, you might have to go to jail in some special circumstances if you are Missclassifying your workers in training independent contractors. So you have to ask yourself, okay, I'm getting, yeah, I'm gonna work for this other wedding planning company, they're gonna train me, they're gonna give me some weddings, but I'm not there, their employee. Well then, that's illegal. That's an illegal way of getting that, that training. So many people are doing it wrong. And again, if they had gone through an education program, for instance, like ours, they would have that information, that baseline information, and know what they're doing wrong and that they can't actually train other people.
Speaker 2:It there's so much to this and, on that same token, let's say that you are doing it correctly and they have hired you as an employee and you're getting that hands-on experience, and Then you leave this company to then open up your own company. If you were honest about that from the beginning of the process and letting them know, this is, in reality, why I want to work for your company. If you were not honest in that and then you leave them to start your own company, that is a bridge that you have burned. Yes, I don't want anyone to do that. I don't want you to burn bridges in this industry, because we all need one another. But think of it that way, like that, that's, that's gonna leave that person with a really bad taste in their mouth and it's just, it's icky. I think sometimes if you're not open and honest with what your intentions are and working with them, then that can really, you know, do some damage that she may not have thought of yeah, because people talk in the industry.
Speaker 1:They know if you lied to someone because that person that you lied to is gonna tell their Photographer who they're really close to, or tell their florist who they're really close to, and that florist isn't gonna want to do business with that wedding planner who just went out on their own because they lied to the other wedding planner who is a guarantee repeat customer right. It's a, it's a whole thing. You're right, it's like we need, as an industry, to have some standards, right, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But we, where are we getting these standards? Because if you're just getting it from experience, unfortunately what could happen is if you are training yourself, okay, in this it to get experience, what if you're training yourself incorrectly? This is eventually gonna, you know, really bite you in the back side. I mean just, I'm just being serious here and you've said you know, if you rely on experience alone, it can really hurt you in the long run. Can you expand on that? I?
Speaker 2:think it can hurt your reputation because if you are training yourself incorrectly like you mentioned, laurie I it's gonna get out whether it's going to be engaged couples talking to one another, other wedding pros talking with one another.
Speaker 2:I've seen it before on social media posts where Someone's getting you know, quote-unquote, that on the job training with the wedding and they mess things up really bad and that Post has gone viral. That can ruin your reputation before you even get started with your career in your business and I don't want to see that happen to other wedding pros. I don't want to see it to happen other wedding planners, because I I can just imagine that feeling because you're I'm sure you Wouldn't edit with intentions of wanting to be the best that she could be, but if you didn't have that base training, your best may not have been what it should have been. Your. What you thought is how a wedding should be planned may not be the correct way a wedding should be planned and it's a domino effect on how that can impact your reputation and I don't want your reputation to be hurt before you even get off your launch pad and that happen when you are relying on You're on the job training and just having your couples be considered your guinea pigs on getting that training.
Speaker 1:It actually happens all the time, chrissy, and I'm noticing some of this advice that is being handed out on forums, from so-called experienced planners to Some that are kind of new in the industry, and there's a lot of bad advice being dispensed, a lot of bad advice. Bad advice that I'm noticing can actually hurt someone's career and get them in trouble legally, and I'm thinking to myself how, how is this possible? And it's because they don't they're probably not a part of a group that they can go and feel comfortable asking like, okay, so this situation happened, what is the best way for me to do this, this and this, or respond to this that's going to protect me legally? It just kind of comes down to am I part of an organization that can really support me throughout my entire career and give me some really great information? First of all, they give me that great education, that that provides that foundation. But then where do I go to ask questions? How can I get some help? And that is just such an important place because, let's just be clear, there are a lot of so-called educators out there, people that have, you know, maybe two years of experience or even ten years of experience that are again doling out Bad information and bad advice and getting people in trouble.
Speaker 1:So you can't just rely on just anybody. Don't take advice from just anybody. You need to make sure that you are finding the right resource to get your information from. I am proud of the reputation that the certified wedding planner society has because we are so dedicated to only providing the right information we have. We we're so intentional with our answers. We ask questions before doling up more advice we have. We need to have a full understanding of the entire situation before we're just going to word vomit all over people. So it is vitally important that you find great mentorships, great coaches, a great organization that can Support you throughout your entire career, and not just in the beginning, or not just someone who's going to train you. And do you know if that that person is providing your training Without the education foundation? Do you know that that person's doing it correctly? Do you know for a fact that you're being trained correctly?
Speaker 2:and not even just that. Are they training you based on what worked for them in their little market, in their hub? Are they training you with the ideas of this is what is common across the globe versus well, this is what we do in my market, because the your trainees should cover everything, not just what was the goods and what made them successful, what's going to make you successful, no matter where you are from or where you live.
Speaker 1:That's true because, in my opinion, yes, most every single wedding planner, coordinator and consultant offers generally the same type of services. But if we really get down to the nitty gritty of it because I coach thousands of wedding planners they all have a unique way of doing business. They have all curated their packages and pricing and their processes a little bit differently than one another. Because of that, because it's curated specifically to them and you're training someone underneath you. You're training them on how you want it done Right, even though that's probably illegal based on your, your state and according to the IRS, unless they are your employees. So if that wedding planner decides that was getting trained, decides to go and Open up their own business or move to a completely different state, they're going to be thinking that that training is just the standard, when most of the time it's not. In fact, a lot of times it is the exact opposite.
Speaker 1:I can't begin to tell you how many wedding planners that you know that I've coached over the years say I'm doing it this way, this way, this way, and I don't know what's going on. Because these things keep happening. I'm like it's because you're not Implementing the correct ways of handling it, so you let's, let's wipe the slate clean, let's do it this way, this way, in this way. It is so important that we have those standards. You know, in both you and I's opinion and I think I can speak for you here I Don't think it matters what level of experience you have, I, you should absolutely at least have that foundational certification or education under your belt. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:I love that. You mentioned earlier how we have planners who go through our program who have 30 plus years of experience and they say, oh, this has reassured me and that I'm doing things right. Or I have had a lot of our 30 plus members who've been planning weddings for 30 years have said this taught me that I was actually doing something wrong, or this taught me that I could do something a little bit better to help me be a better planner. So if you've got three months of experience, or 30 years of experience still getting some type of education and honestly, especially in this industry because when we think about it, this is an industry that is always evolving what you were doing 30 years ago, you're more likely will not be doing now. So you have to grow and you have to improve, and that's with almost every single job when you think about it.
Speaker 2:When I was thinking about an attorney, in order for them to keep practicing law, they have to take a certain test every single year or get 12 hours of some type of education every single year. That's because with every field there's always going to be a way to improve, and that also includes the wedding industry. So not only do you get your base, but you also want to find some type of organization that allows you to continue to grow, and we offer that here at the Certified Wedding Planner Society, because we know how important it is. Not only do we offer it, we offer it for free monthly education for free, because we know it's important for you to continue to grow. That we don't want to limit you with a cost. We want you to keep growing, and it's going to cost you $0 in order to do that. That's something that we so firmly believe in is that you continue to grow and you continue to learn and have that support day in and day out.
Speaker 1:To me, every single wedding planner, no matter what level of experience you have, you should have a certain standard that you meet, and I know, just based off of what I have seen, there are so many planners out there that have been in the business 10 plus years that are not meeting those standards.
Speaker 1:I'm seeing it in their advice, I'm seeing it in what they're saying, and it is so hard to sit back and say nothing.
Speaker 1:I find that it is really really difficult to say nothing.
Speaker 1:You know, we as planners need to make sure we're not relying on articles and YouTube alone to get the information that we need, because you don't know who's writing those articles, you don't know who's providing that hands-on experience, and if you are providing the hands-on experience yourself, to yourself, you are most likely training yourself wrong, and so we need to make sure that every single planner has a standard and meets a standard, and that's my mission in life, to be quite honest with you, and I'm sure that anybody who offers an actual certification in wedding planning most likely has that same standard as well, like they have that same mission as well.
Speaker 1:We all want to make sure that we are raising the standards in the wedding industry and I just cannot stress enough how important it is that we put ourselves in the same categories. All of those other career choices that we talked about, the real estate agents, the you know hairstylists, the esthetician, the baristas, the dentists, the attorneys all of these people have to go through training. Why don't wedding planners have to go through training when we are the ones who are dealing with, on average, between 40 and 80 thousand dollars and someone's most important day of their life?
Speaker 2:And we mentioned this quite often that we are rated number three in the most stressful jobs of America. So can you imagine walking into a career where you know you're going to be stressed out and you're walking into it with Absolutely no base training? Oh my gosh. So you went from three to probably number one. Because I see it, I see in these forums where, because there was no training, or even, like we mentioned, with the contract, not having an actual contract, that drafted by a Hospitality attorney, and just something that she created in a word doc. How you're not being protected, that scares me the most about just winging it and only relying on hands-on experience only is that you are setting yourself up For even more stress for a job that is already as stressful as it can be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we are rated number three in the world of the most stressful jobs. You're absolutely right. Why in the world should we make it even more stressful by going at this alone, training ourselves and not having the support system around us, but from an organization that is designed to support someone just like you?
Speaker 2:right here to you the top five. I can guarantee you all of the other careers in that one are.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about police officers and we have firefighters, we have pilots In the top five, we have military and then and us those are the people in the top five. Okay, all of the other ones, except for us, have an industry standard that you have got to do some sort of education and training. So, guys, if you're listening and you do not have a certification, you have not taken a formal education, you are not a part of an organization that can it be there to support you and give you that can free, continuing education, month after month after month. You know, then, you are Octopus on roller skates. You are probably the nicest octopus on the planet, but I would rather Help you by taking off those roller skates and helping you find that perfect direction.
Speaker 1:Understanding your packages. Understanding the right types of pricing, how to charge, why you're charging that, what causes to have in your contract, what are those causes mean. Understanding all the documents that you should be providing your couples, what documents you should not be just handing over to your couples. How to implement situations that are Just unforeseeable. How to deal with difficult people. How to balance your work and your life, because, as Having a career as rated number three of the most stressful jobs in the world. There are millions of things that it that really have to be taken into consideration. There's so many variables with our, our, our industry, and there are industry no-nos. If you are training yourself, do you know what all those no-nos are that are gonna absolutely give you a bad rep? Do you know that you're doing something wrong? You may not, because if you're not a part of an organization that doesn't, that isn't teaching you these things, how would you know? Of course you wouldn't know. So I'm not expecting someone who doesn't have education under their belt to just magically know something, but I am encouraging wedding planners to get that education so that they can equip themselves with the knowledge and then do something about it.
Speaker 1:You know when, when my daughter's almost 24 years old, when she was a little teeny-tike, a little toddler, I I taught her how to tie her shoes. Okay, she was unexpected To know how to tie her shoes Prior to me showing her how to tie her shoes. Now, remember, during the training of helping her tie her shoes, she used to get so frustrated oh, I can't do it. And she would just like throw her cute little kid down. And I would say listen, little munchkin, let's try again. There's no way that you would have ever known how to do this unless someone shows you how. So let's just practice, practice, practice. So even our babies.
Speaker 1:We are training our children, we. What do we train them on? We're teaching them. You know we're obviously we're not making them pass the test or anything, right, but we are training them on how to speak, how to walk, how to sit, how to Drink out of a sippy cup the first time. We are training them on how to chew food. We're training them on how to keep the food on the plate. We're doing that for children. But You're okay. You're telling me that a wedding planner who is going to have to manage upwards of $80,000 on average of Someone's hard-earned money to plan an event that is a once-in-a-lifetime event Hopefully, in case you know, we're always hoping that it works out but a once-in-a-lifetime event and with zero training. You don't need to hear from anybody how to do this, just simply because you, you did what, you read a wedding magazine and you magically know how to do it and you know all the right ways and all the wrong things, and you just know. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Speaker 2:What doesn't. But what I love to and you mentioned this earlier I obviously get your base education, but know that it is so much more than that. There's a reason we're ranked number three in the most America. We you have to have that support, and that's what I love so much about our society is that it's not just support and education, but it's support in your mental well being, it's support in that work life balance. It's it's that additional support. So it is. It is so much more than just that piece of paper, because I want everyone to have that. I want everybody planning to have that support system. Because I know how hard this job is and I think that's one of the bigger benefits of gaining your certification finding that organization that's going to support you in your career but also support you as a person. Yes, this is hard. This job is hard and I don't want anyone to walk into this job blind, with no base. It makes me nervous and I don't want you to be in this industry alone.
Speaker 1:That's the thing. I mean it because it is such a difficult job and I remember being brand new to the industry 30 years ago, chrissy. There weren't loving organizations like the certified wedding planner society. I was literally struggling and trying to make this on my own and I made so many unnecessary mistakes in the beginning of my career mistakes that if I had taken training if training even existed 30 years ago which it does not If I was able to take training, I would have not made so many of those mistakes. Now I'm training people how not to make those mistakes and what I've learned from all of my years of experience. But I would have loved not to have had to make those mistakes and gone through some of those hardships because of how unnecessary they were, and that's why I think that foundational level is just so good. Let's have that foundation. Let's have that as our first step in our ultimate success, because it's really only step one. Like you mentioned it, ours at least, our organization I can't speak for others, but our organization, the training, is step one.
Speaker 1:That's the foundation. Like, okay, that now is made of concrete. Now what we need to do is help you know how to build those walls and get the right roofing and to make sure that we get, you know, well insulated windows that are not going to shatter. And we're going to build this amazing structure which is our business, and we are going to have that ongoing support so that you, when you're frustrated, you have them. The work life balance workshops that we put provide every single month so that you feel supported mentally and emotionally, and then we're also going to provide those career workshops where we are also making sure that we are talking about all of the ins and outs of why you should build the wall and the roofing and the building, and so we're going to build the walls with the two by fours and being 16 inches apart and with you know, and how to do the electrical right. We're talking about all of those things and even though all of that is covered in the main certification program, with us, we go into it even more deeply on a monthly and ongoing basis, and so it's just so, so important to have that.
Speaker 1:So find it. If it's not with us, fine, find it with someone else, but don't poo poo Having wedding planners be educated, because we are one of the only industries that don't require the education in order to to start a business, and I think that is one of the scariest things and that's why we exist. That you know organizations like the certified wedding planner society exists is because we believe so much in making sure that providing that foundation can really be the difference between someone's ultimate success and someone's failure. And I want to make sure that if this is a career that you love and that you want to just excel in, why wouldn't you want that extra knowledge? Why wouldn't you want to have that foundational piece and have that ongoing support for the rest of your life? It doesn't make sense not to have it. So if it's not with us, make sure you find it with someone.
Speaker 2:Yep, I 100% agree. This was phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad that we had this talk. I'm glad that we got this off our chest. So thank you all for listening to the wedding planner podcast. If you're not yet a member of the certified wedding planner society, we would love to welcome you into our amazing and loving family. Simply go to our website, certified wedding planner society calm, and you can learn how to join and learn about all the different certification options available to you. In the meantime, I hope that you have a really phenomenal day. Happy planning to everyone.