I had the pleasure of entertaining Gayle and Jim O’Donnell, owners of All About Weddings in Tukwila, Washington which was something we planned for months revolving around the National Stationery Show. We went to dinner with my wife, Stacy, who is also an invitation retailer (she owns “Make An Impression,”). We toured Encore and my wife’s store (which took 10 seconds), and had a sleepover in my home.
Gayle and I go back a number of years; she helped me promote my book, “The Wedding Expert’s Guide To Sales and Marketing,” to members of the “Association of Bridal Consulants.” (which I still sell but you can download it right now for free by clicking here). Gayle and Jim have always attended my seminars, she is an active Encore dealer and is a client of mine with Local Traffic Builder. The idea for our get together came from our time we spent together attending Wedding MBA, a trade show and seminar rich conference for wedding professionals. I will be speaking and exhibiting there this year, September 21-24 in Las Vegas.
We talked a great deal about business issues on both sides and I think that our time together will make a positive difference in each other’s lives. She gave me some honest criticism about how Encore needs to improve. I gave her consulting advice that can unleash her potential and cut her overhead drastically.
One of the things she talked to me about was how she helped Preston Bailey, the well known party planner use “Twitter.” She was going to help me but we didn’t have time. I’m a big boy, I supposedly understand the internet, so I figured it out myself. My twitter screen name is “WeddingWiseguy.” Twitter helps you broadcast information in a concise manner. You only have 140 characters to get the message across and you can follow other Twitter members. You can sign up to follow me. Each communication is called a “tweet”. It is a very hot social networking site.