Full speaker details
& session info below!
Mollie Marrocco
Brand Coach + Content Strategist
@molliemarrocco
Mollie is a Brand Coach and Content Strategist (which basically means she helps people figure out what to write on their website and Instagram). She works primarily with creatives and coaches who want to develop a standout online presence when it comes to what they’re saying, and how they’re showing up online. She uses her background as both a teacher and a wedding planner to be a translator between her clients, and their clients. Most people struggle to get the thoughts that are in their heads to make sense when they’re written down, but Mollie has knack for taking those ideas and turning them into a clear, consistent brand message for her clients.
MAIN SESSION: “The 10 Mistakes You’re Probably Making with Your Messaging…and How to Fix Them”
Mollie will outline the things you’re doing in your copy and overall brand messaging that are confusing your audience and costing you clients. She’ll also tell you exactly what you can do to fix them so that you can stop wasting time agonizing over an Instagram caption or a page on your website, and get back to working with your clients!
In her presentation you’ll learn:
- The mistakes most entrepreneurs make when it comes to their brand message
- Simple ways to fix the mistakes you’re making that may be affecting your bottom line
- A subtle shift in perspective that you should employ in your copy to grab your client’s attention
- Why being an expert hurts you when it comes to your messaging
- Ways to create an authentic brand presence that attracts clients you love
“To me, staying relevant means staying authentic to who I am. And since who I am is always evolving, I’m constantly trying to infuse that authenticity into how I am showing up in my business and my life. When you do that, you stay relevant because being “you” is always in style!”
Natalie Denyse
Founder of In Good Company PR
Creator of The Essential PR & Marketing Field Guide
@ingoodcompanypr
In Good Company Public Relations is a boutique PR and marketing firm serving distinguished brands in the wedding, events and hospitality industry. Founder Natalie Denyse has been recognized for leading with a forward-thinking approach, combining media relations, social, content and offline marketing tactics into one holistic strategy that has helped industry tastemakers stay at the forefront of the industry. From celebrity wedding planners to top creative artists and acclaimed fine art photographers around the globe, In Good Company PR’s clients have appeared in The New York Times, Inc Magazine, Entrepreneur, Martha Stewart Weddings, Vogue and more.
The Essential PR & Marketing Field Guide, a digital education resource for creative brands looking to propel their business to new heights with a modern PR and marketing strategy.
Headshot photo by: @elizabethladuca
MAIN SESSION: “Why an intentional PR & marketing strategy can help you tap into the global luxury industry”
In this engaging discussion, Natalie will be guiding you through the key facets of building a diversified strategy using media relations, content, social and offline marketing tactics that will help you stay at the top of your game. You’ll gain insight into how the top global tastemakers continue to innovate and use marketing to bolster their growth (and how you can, too). This discussion will arm you with actionable, creative tactics for elevating your wedding brand and connecting more meaningfully with a higher-echelon of clientele.
“Relevance leads to longevity. Being an authority who pushes the boundaries with a forward-thinking approach.”
Liz Lajoie
Zen Money Strategist & CFO
Founder of Zen Money Initiative
@zenmoneycfo
As the Zen Money Strategist & CFO, Liz Lajoie, MBA, helps entrepreneurs master their finances and grow thriving businesses that support their passions and advance their big missions.
She’s the founder of the Zen Money Initiative™, supporting mission-driven business owners to make more money, manage it better, and bring more of it home, leveraging her nearly 2 decades of financial management and strategic business development experience with established, multi-million-dollar firms. Liz uses the Zen Money Map™ method to help create and implement sustainable, strategic growth goals for small business owners and entrepreneurs around the globe.
Liz is host of Zen Money Monday, a weekly podcast exploring profitable business building from the inside out, and is the two-time international best-selling author of From Zero to Zen: Secret Keys to Nurturing Your Numbers and Finding Financial Flow and Zen Money Map: Charge Your Worth, Pay Yourself First, and Fund Your Wildest Dreams. She lives in northern New Hampshire with her husband and two kids.
MAIN SESSION: “Zen Money Mastery: Building a Thriving Creative Business from the Inside Out”
If you’re anything like most business owners and entrepreneurs out there, talking (or thinking) about your finances is pretty low on your favorite things list. Not to worry…Liz will (gently) walk you through how to take your numbers in hand and put them to use to build the financial future you really want. Learn how to leverage your unique financial style, strategically plan for growth by focusing on your “triangle of opportunity,” and understand how to build your business with a decision-maker’s mindset and map your version of Zen Money!
“Often we think of staying relevant as an external conversation, of staying current with other people’s expectations. In our work, we use your finances as a lens to look at the whole health of your business, so for me staying relevant means staying current with your goals and big dreams. They change for all of us, especially as entrepreneurs and business owners. Sometimes very quickly! So it’s important to have a pulse on what’s happening not only in our businesses (financially or otherwise), but how that’s translating to our personal lives and beyond. If something’s changed in your life outside of your business, it will have a direct impact on how you show up to run your company, and vice versa. Making sure our day-to-day focus and financial choices match our evolving big goals helps make sure our work and the rest of our lives are aligned.”
Melissa Koren Wilson
Doer of Things
Photographer + Brand Strategist
@melissakoren & @youreabigdealbranding
Melissa Koren Wilson suffers from impatience. She’s always looking for ways to be more efficient, and help the people around her be more efficient. (It’s as altruistic as it is selfish) She’s also a Photographer + Brand Strategist. Melissa and her business partner, Amy, run You’re A Big Deal, a brand strategy company. Their focus is not only on education & design, but workshopping with other business owners to teach them not just what to do, but how to actually get sh*t done.
When she finds spare time, she can be found hanging out with her wife and scouting out delicious bourbon and/or fernet drinks, trying all the chicken tenders in a 150-mile radius of Exeter, NH, belting out a song at karaoke, or just figuring out the next thing she can make more efficient so she has more time to do more things!
MAIN SESSION: “Productivity: 15 hacks in 15 minutes!”
What if you could reclaim 168 hours a year? That’s 7 days you just found for a vacation!
Do you find yourself thinking, there must be a more efficient way to do this? Or do you not even have time to think about if there’s a faster way to do things?
Melissa will share her top tips and tricks that help save her time while running two businesses and using those extra minutes to enjoy a good bourbon, or at least a titos & soda!
“The only true irrelevance is stagnancy.”
Leah Haydock
Wedding Photographer
Leah Haydock Photography
@leahhaydock
Leah Haydock started her business in 2008 during one of the worst recessions this country has seen. 12 years later, she’s an international award-winning photographer known for her timeless pictures, ability to make couples feel instantly comfortable and look amazing. Leah lives in Boston and when she’s not photographing weddings, she’s cooking or telling stories for The Moth.
MAIN SESSION: “We Need To Talk”
In Leah’s talk you will learn actionable ways to use your words and navigate tricky situations. This will alleviate awkward client requests while setting expectations and communicating effectively!
“Staying relevant in the wedding industry doesn’t mean slavishly following trends and panicking over new forms of social media! Staying relevant means being closely connected to my clients and other wedding professionals. The wedding industry is a people business and you have to treat people well and work incredibly hard.”
Megan Bieber
Founder and Social Media Lead
Hitched With A Hashtag
@hitchedwithahashtag
Megan DeWaele Bieber, is the founder and social media lead of hitched with a hashtag, a social media and PR agency aimed directly at supporting wedding professionals. She has spent the last 10 years running social media programs for tech companies before breaking out on her own in 2018 to start a social media and PR consulting business aimed at supporting wedding professionals grow their social following, elevate their brand, and convert followers to clients. She loves a good glass of red wine, a good long car ride with her husband, and snuggles with her two cats.
MAIN SESSION: The Elements of Instagram: 10 Actionable Tips to Winning and Growing Your Instagram Account
“Social media is a constantly evolving and changing ecosystem which requires an eye for detail and a commitment to lifelong learning. Staying relevant means maintaining a commitment to lifelong learning, the ability to adapt, and provide the best strategies for my clients to help them win!”
Beth Fitzgerald
Full-Stack Rails, Web Developer
Magg Press
A Web Development & Strategy Company
Beth Fitzgerald, owner of MaggPress LLC, is an award-winning full-stack web developer. She began her career in journalism and ran a successful photo studio for 15 years. After creating her own web startup, Beth won a Women Who Code scholarship and earned a certification in full stack web development. Beth coaches all-things-online, from social strategy to targeted traffic. Her keynote lectures on tech and digital marketing are fun and engaging. Beth’s business creates websites, apps and digital marketing plans for wedding and tourism businesses. Beth is also a mom, a wife, and a dog-lover.
MAIN SESSION: Take It From The “Big Guys”
What can we learn from large agile companies like Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix? Plenty. In this micro-course, we’ll explore the mindset and the simple framework that big corporations use to act fast and deliver more client satisfaction. Your small business will learn how to think of your services as products, how to increase your productivity, and how to build stronger, sustainable work teams that are happier and healthier. You’ll get links, resources, and ideas to implement through this next decade. Plus, get Beth’s oh-so-important Google updates to survive what’s next!
“Today’s success is tomorrow’s mediocrity. This means anything appealing today might be appalling tomorrow.”
Heather Robertson
Founder and CEO
Bold Arrival
Heather guides budding leaders to seasoned pros to inspire and realize their best work. The outcome: more confidence, clarity and elevated success.
She leads professional trainings, yoga and meditation programs and has advised 100’s of women and men from the state level to the private sector. She launched and subsequently sold her first business by the age of 35 and, currently, co-owns a premier outdoor adventure company on 65 acres in northern New Mexico in addition to Bold Arrival.
Beyond her formal education, Heather has extensive training in leadership, yoga, meditation, facilitation and communications. She has been interviewed from national radio shows & podcasts, to keynoting for conferences to unsuspecting publication interviews like the Women’s Adventure Rider Magazine and Telluride Magazine. In addition to her love for business and adventure Heather has been a certified yoga & meditation educator for over two decades and continues her training with mentors in Switzerland and the United States.
What she offers is her unyielding perspective and knowledge that you are… “Built for the Calling and Designed for the Experience!”
MAIN SESSION: Triumph – How to Win the Day with Meditation in Unknown Times
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From the home front to the global front we are living a transformative moment in human history.
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Meditation has a track record as being one of the greatest assets for getting through change to reaching envisioned success.
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At the very core it stands to support you to be the calm, the clear and the unshakable.
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Inspiration and strength flow and life takes on a lightness even when all seems challenging.
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At times this may seem out of reach, yet meditation is a reliable ally in unknown landscapes.Join Heather as she discusses 3 proven ways meditation supports you to triumph in unknown times and remain as relevant as ever. And how finding the right approach to meditation can make all the difference.
“To be iconic trailblazers we have to be relevant! We do this through educating ourselves while remaining open to inspiration with new ideas, concepts and strategies.”
Colleen Bianco Bezich
Founder of Bezich Law & Five Story Media
@bezichlaw
Colleen is an attorney and video producer. Her law firm, Bezich Law, serves individuals, small businesses, local government entities and non-profit organizations in the Philadelphia Metro Area and beyond. Colleen’s reputation as a thought leader and arts advocate has led clients from as far as Hawaii and the UK to consult with her on matters such as business start-up, contract matters & intellectual property, and invite her participation in numerous industry conferences- like Relevant!
Colleen founded and continues to serve as executive producer & general counsel for three (3) South Jersey-based video production studios, including Five Story Media, which counts the Philadelphia Eagles, American Airlines, the City of Philadelphia, NRG, and Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House among its clients. Although she retired from filming weddings in 2017, Colleen continues to oversee the operations of her two wedding cinema studios: Be Films and Pair of Hearts.
Colleen currently resides in Haddonfield, New Jersey, where she serves her community as a member of the Zoning Board, as well as the Celebrations Committee (which plans large-scale civic events for the entire community). She also serves on the Supreme Court of New Jersey’s District Ethics Committee, which investigates allegations of unethical attorney behavior. Her philanthropic efforts include advocacy & fundraising for the Alzheimer’s Association, handling pro bono matters for Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (PVLA), as well as serving on the Board of LUCY Outreach in Camden, New Jersey.
When she isn’t at her desk or behind the scenes on one of her latest productions, Colleen can be found crafting, dancing or reading with her son, Luca; or planning their next family adventure with her husband & business partner, Anthony.
MAIN SESSION: Legal Strategies for Combatting COVID-19 and Protecting Your Business
- Learn how to feel EMPOWERED instead of helpless during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
- Review contractual terms that apply and protect your business in times of turmoil.
- Understand your legal rights & obligations before communicating with clients.
- Examine opportunities for safe, legal business-building during this stressful time.
“I’m always challenging myself: How I can improve the lives of my clients, colleagues & community? Relevance, in this sense, means understanding others needs and wants, and being able to meet or exceed them by staying informed and engaged. It means connecting people, resources, thoughts and communities in ways that normally may have been ignored or underserved.”
Amy Northard CPA
The Accountant for Creatives
Amy Northard, CPA and Founder of The Accountant for Creatives is a Certified Public Accountant based out of Indianapolis, who works with creatives all over the US to make taxes and bookkeeping less scary. She’s not your parent’s accountant and her goal is to make the overwhelming money tasks you deal with as a business owner simple and manageable.
When she’s not helping clients with taxes and bookkeeping, you can find her taste-testing craft beers, on a run with her Goldendoodle pup Lilly or planning her dream log cabin with her husband.
MAIN SESSION: 5 things you need to know to keep your business alive through unexpected events.
This session will cover the nuts and bolts of what’s going on in the tax and accounting world right now. 💰 .
Topics will include new tax deadlines, cash flow, loss of business and how that can affect your 2020 taxes, SBA programs and several other current Covid related money hot-topics! Prepare those questions!
Getting the most accurate and up-to-date information is crucial for our businesses right now and we are so thrilled that Amy is able to share that with us!
“Being relevant means that I always keep learning and adapting to best serve my clients.”
Marcella Hoekstra
Filmmaker
Filmmaker Marcella Hoekstra has been creating wedding films and producing web media content since 2005. With a degree in Film and Video from the Rhode Island School of Design, she has spent over two decades as an independent filmmaker, director, producer and business owner. With her two wedding videography businesses, Heirloom Pictures (Boston Magazines Best of Weddings Videographer 2018) and LoveLocked Films as well as her social media creation and management branch Tiny Screen Media, she applies her well honed production skills to create smooth and efficient workflows to make the most of her time and create a quality experience for her clients.
When she is not working, Marcella likes to hang out in her vegetable garden, practice her (just started lessons this year!) drum skills, cook with her awesome daughter and browse Craigslist for MidCentury furniture.
MAIN SESSION: Flow Master – Timesaving Templates and Workflow Management: Make the most of your work hours with detailed templates, workflows and calendars.
“Being relevant means humbly acknowledging that you don’t know everything. What worked last year might not work next year and no matter how long you have been in the business there is always something new to learn!“
Nicole Mower
Wedding and Event Planner
Nicole Mower Weddings and Events + Elope Maine
Nicole Mower has an award-winning event planning business and also serves as the Leader of the Seacoast, New England chapter of The Rising Tide Society.
She has been voted Best Wedding Planner in New Hampshire Magazine’s Best of Bride, taught The University of New Hampshire’s Wedding Planning Certificate course, had been featured in multiple national blogs, newspapers and magazines and has provided education to wedding planners and vendors at multiple workshops and events.
In addition to her planning business, Nicole is the sales manager for three local wedding venues: The Governor John Langdon House in downtown Portsmouth, NH, the Hamilton House in South Berwick, Maine, and the brand new wedding venue Scotland Fields in York, Maine. Her most recent project, inspired by staying relevant with the current times, was the launch of Elope Maine. Elope Maine focuses on serving couples who desire an intimate celebration with inspired design.
Headshot by Melissa Koren Photography
MAIN SESSION: SALES- Your toolkit to successful selling!
Everything you need to know about sales from a wedding planner perspective. Learn the inside scoop on the sales process from wedding planner Nicole Mower, the person connecting clients to vendors.
Seeing sales from both the client and vendor perspective Nicole offers a conversation based on real-life sales experience in the wedding world.
- How to sell to a planner vs how to sell to a client
- How to structure offerings, packages, services: What you should call them and how many you should have
- Bonding and rapport in 2020 – why your inquiry form is so important and how to use that in your sales process.
- Strategies on when to provide your pricing.
- Using visuals and communication to sell your service.
“Relevant means staying current in an ever changing world by connecting with people, adapting to change, having conversations and making decisions focused on your values.”
Sarah Weise
Marketer & Bestselling Author
Bixa
Sarah Weise is the CEO of award-winning marketing research agency Bixa and the best selling author of Insta Brain: The New Rules for Marketing to Generation Z. For 15 years, Sarah has been a guide to hundreds of leading brands including Google, IBM, Capital One, Mikimoto, PBS, and Real Warriors, to name a few. Sarah helps brands achieve a laser-focus on their customers and build experiences that are downright addictive. She lectures at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business on marketing strategy for the next generation, and speaks at conferences and corporate events worldwide.
MAIN SESSION: InstaBrain: Snap Into the Minds of Your Gen Z Customers
Today Generation Z (ages 13-25) outpaces Millennials by 3 million and makes up 40% of consumers. What’s more, they couldn’t be more different than Millennials as they learn, shop, and engage with your brand.
Are you connecting in a way that will resonate?
This session by acclaimed researcher and bestselling author Sarah Weise, will teach you the new rules for marketing to Generation Z and how your brand can add value to their lives.
Packed with stories and videos direct from teenagers, you’ll learn what you need to know about this new wave of customers, including:
- Where they go for different types of content
- How to draw them in
- How to keep them coming back for moreYou’ll walk away with a new strategy for marketing to a Gen Z audience.