Tying The Knot Proposal
I have strong beliefs about the wedding business market and wish to offer small companies the chance to grow, based on the same beliefs. I am dedicated to offering couples a personal and friendly service. I do my best to cater for what they want with regards to style and budget restrictions, but without cutting down on quality.
Recommendation Directory: Tying The Knot
There are TWO options:
Option One
This is simply a mutual agreement to display each other’s web address as a link on our websites. There is no commitment beyond that. This provides free marketing for each party with very little commitment or hassle.
Option Two
This is my preferred option. Although it involves extra commitment there is still no financial risk and a much more exciting opportunity for company advertising and client trust.
PROPOSAL
To make this clear at this point, the following relationship is only between you and me, but I would share this relationship with others who are not in the same line of business as yourself. In addition to a link on my website, I would be prepared to positively recommend to my clients, the services you offer. I would do this in the form of a printed directory and/or by giving the clients a prepared pack of printed literature, price lists, business cards etc. You would present your client with similar information on my business. As an incentive to my client, to take up the recommendation, some extra value would be offered to them by you and visa versa. This may be a discount or a freebie of some description. I hope that, in time, this directory will build up a reputation among brides, for having high quality businesses at a price that is accessible to everyone.
EXAMPLE
You are a florist, for instance. At every enquiry, I will include a directory list, together with my normal information. After one of my clients has booked me, I would then send them a pack that would include a list of personally recommended companies (one company for each wedding category). The pack would also include promotional items for each company (i.e. a price list, promotion leaflet or just a business card, provided by you). If they hadn’t yet arranged their flowers, I would recommend you and state why you would be a good choice such as “What you will find with Jane is that she is excellent at matching the colour of flowers with your bridesmaid dresses and she has a lot of good ideas that you probably haven’t thought about. Also, if you give her my card she will give you a 5% discount” (or whatever incentive you can offer).
You would do a similar thing in return. Perhaps if a client meeting took place, you would give them one of my leaflets. You could also send one of my promotional leaflets with each of your prospective client correspondence i.e receipts, order confirmations, mail shots.
I must stress that it is important to me that my clients, (and I am sure you will feel the same) are completely satisfied. Therefore, I would like us both to review the relationship after 6 months (for the first year) and then every 12 months. In the fullness of time, as the relationship develops and we work on the occasional wedding together, each should become more confident of the other’s standards of service thereby assuring each that the client will be more satisfied with the recommendation.
The benefit of this option is that it enables attraction of clients who may otherwise not be aware of you. What I am aiming for is a collaboration of wedding suppliers that are top drawer, in terms of value and service. These companies will all be based within South East England.
There needs to be some ground rules to make the relationship work:
- It is a mutual agreement and can be terminated at any time if one of us doesn’t wish to participate any longer.
- We must supply each other with the promotional leaflets, business cards and other documentation to accompany our business and promote the directory.
- We must advise each other when a recommendation results in a booking, so we can monitor progress of the directory.
- We must agree not to recommend any other companies (within the same category) on a business level. Therefore, if you have any working relationships with other photographers, they should be ceased by the time the directory is up and running (Feb 2008). If you display a photographers work on your website (for adding visual interest), this must be replaced.
“Tying The Knot” is the official name of the directory. I hope, in years to come, it will be a name that people can trust.