Planning Destination Weddings with Katie Mast

Do you dream of planning beautiful destination weddings all across the globe for your clients? Destination wedding planning is a whole different beast from planning local events. It requires someone who can stay calm no matter what challenges pop up. For a confident, authentic and honest salesperson, destination weddings provide incredible opportunities to upsell and earn more money. In today’s episode, host May Yeo Silvers sits down with Katie Mast, community manager for Rock Paper Coin and former owner of Cotton & Oak, to discuss everything you need to know about planning destination weddings.   Katie Mast was the business owner of Cotton & Oak, a 6 figure destination wedding services company, for nearly 12 years while residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. After covid, her family moved to South Carolina, and Katie decided to retire from her business. During her 12 years as a destination wedding planner, Katie learned how to confidently plan gorgeous weddings from afar, gain her clients’ trust, and pivot on the spot whenever challenges arose. Destination weddings are more complicated, because you have to have not only have a plan A, but several backup plans. When you are on site at a far off destination, you will not have access to the same resources you would have if you were planning a local wedding. This means you really have to know your stuff and research the location thoroughly during the planning process. The good news is that once you have done all of that, you have the opportunity to make a lot more money off destination weddings, as you can upsell for pre and post wedding events.    If you have been considering transitioning into destination wedding planning, tune into this episode of The Unstoppable Eventrepreneur™ to learn more about the skills needed to succeed.    Quotes • “It is a completely different beast, when it comes to wedding planning versus destination wedding planning. Because you have to be just as confident planning a wedding from afar as you would in your own backyard.” (7:36-7:50 | Katie)  • “Always start with your easiest service that you know that you're going to be able to deliver on, and that is month of coordination.” (23:13-23:22 | Katie) • “You can have the ability to upsell so much more in destination wedding planning.” (28:22-28:28 | Katie) • “If you are going to invest in any kind of marketing, make it be SEO.” (40:15-40:19 | Katie)   Links Connect with me at: [email protected] Website: events4anyone.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mayyeosilvers Facebook: www.facebook.com/mayyeosilvers IG: www.instagram.com/mayyeosilvers TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mayyeosilvers  FB private group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/events4anyone   If you are looking for a simple easy to use software for your business that can generate professional looking proposals, contracts, invoices and also integrates with a payment merchant, Rock Paper Coin could be your solution. This software is so easy to use and helps to lessen the overwhelm that you could face when using more robust software.. The best part is, it has the lowest credit card processing fee at 2.5% compared to the industry rate of 2.9%! Use my affiliate link to get 60% off your first year of subscription. If you like to start a trial, use my link as well and it will NOT ask you for any credit card info. Here is the link:  https://app.rockpapercoin.com/SignUp?promoCode=RPCEVENTS4ANYONE     Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm