It's no secret that millennials (aka Generation Y) are an opinionated group. They grew up being told they could be anything they wanted to be and were awarded with an armful of trophies just for showing up. As the
majority group of wedding clients, they can also be incredibly frustrating to work with. They have their ideas and don't see why you can't produce them as is, even if you know first-hand from being in the tulle-lined trenches for 20 plus years that their ideas won't work.
The good news is that millennials are open to being talked into ideas. Not necessarily in an upselling way, but in the sense that they are open to hearing why another method, style or idea may work better than they one they originally had in mind. Because they grew up in school systems that advocated group consensus, they are used to everyone weighing in and taking the best of all of those ideas to make the best decision.
If your years of experience in your field means that you know something won't work out in reality as well as it does in your client's imagination, the best way to get them on board is to
explain why and how it won't translate the way it does in their mind's eye. This generation is smart -- the most educated and for whom research is a sixth sense -- and they're open to an intelligent conversation about the finer points of their ideas.
Simply saying "no, that won't work" or "I'm the expert and we're not doing that" will get you nowhere with this group of clients. Inviting them into your process will leave both you and them less frustrated, increase their trust in your abilities, and reassure them that they hired the best person for the job.
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Welcome to Think Splendid! My name is Liene and I'm an author, speaker and expert on the intersection of business and social behavior for the wedding and lifestyle industries. Specializing in the consumer psychology of millennials, affluents and engaged couples, I'm obsessed with figuring out what makes people tick and why they make the decisions they do. I believe social media is a return to old-fashioned conversations rather than a race to keep up with the next big thing and I'm a big fan of the question "why?" -- it doesn't get asked enough.
For millennials, the generation that accounts for more than 70% of today's weddings and the first to grow up with the Internet, technology has done more than give unprecedented access to information; it has physically changed their brains on a microcellular level. What worked in bridal marketing just ten years ago is no longer effective because the way today's engaged couples think is actually different than couples of generations past. In Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace, wedding expert Liene Stevens unveils the mindset of today's brides and grooms and provides a blueprint for marketing your business in a rapidly changing world.
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