Unlocking the Power of AI: Exploring ChatGPT's Potential for Wedding Businesses

[00:00:00] Kristina Stubblefield: Welcome back to another episode of WedPro Business Solutions. I have a guest on this episode with me and it is Cathy MacRae. 

[00:00:09] Cathy Macrae: I'm really excited to be here with you and your listeners today. 

[00:00:12] Kristina Stubblefield: I'm so glad we've been able to stay connected. So to share with the audience, I first met Cathy through the Association of Bridal Consultants, and we have a great thing called social media and I've been able to stay in contact.

[00:00:27] I was so excited to have Cathy come on and be a guest today because we're going to talk about both of our favorite topics Okay, so it's technology , we're going to be talking about AI.

[00:00:38] Or if y'all really want to hear, artificial intelligence. And Cathy, before we get into this, will you share with my audience just a little bit about you? 

[00:00:48] Cathy Macrae: Sure. Many years ago, I started out as a middle school band and choir teacher. Had no intentions of changing careers, loved what I did. Then we had a psychotic principal and I ended up leaving my job and I always joke I never planned on changing careers.

[00:01:07] And I ended up thinking, what's close to being a band teacher? Oh, a wedding planner. So I jumped in. Both feet into the entrepreneur world. 2008, as a recession began. So there's no better time to start a business then and dived into that world. Have enjoyed it, have been doing it for 16 years now.

[00:01:28] And along that way, I became fascinated with, I'm going to say the marketing end, but in particular social media. A few years ago, thank goodness, before the pandemic started I actually started working with people and advising them on how to do their social media, doing some social media management.

[00:01:47] And basically helping people figure out this crazy world of social, how to stay on top of it without getting too overwhelmed, like how to do it well, but stay sane. 

[00:02:00] Kristina Stubblefield: And honestly, it is an ever changing landscape. And for those out there that think, Oh, at some point in time, it's not going to be like that.

[00:02:10] It is. It's exciting on one hand, but it can be really frustrating. I think a lot of times for wedding professionals, because they're solopreneurs: they're the business owner, the accountant, the marketing person. They do all of the to do items on the list, but also they're doing whatever service or making whatever products they also offer.

[00:02:35] I love to say they're wearing all the hats and social media can be such a powerful tool, but it can also be incredibly frustrating because it does change so much. 

[00:02:48] Cathy Macrae: Exactly. And as I said, the worst part is as a solopreneur, we start building skills and as we keep building them, we get better and better.

[00:02:57] The problem and challenge with social is we start getting good at it and then they throw a new thing at us or they throw a wrench in and say, do this. And you just literally at times want to pull your hair out because you just are getting a handle on the other thing. And it's seriously, you now want me to go on Threads and same thing, when they added reels and stuff like that, it was like, what do you mean?

[00:03:23] I'm getting really good at my single picture posts and writing my captions. As I said, it's just ever changing and some of it is good, but it can be a lot to take and people only handle, I think, what is it 10% of change? 

[00:03:37] They can handle 10% of change without going into stress overload. 

[00:03:41] Kristina Stubblefield: They can. You're right. And If it's not the platform changing, it's a new platform and because I do a lot with coaching with wedding professionals and consulting, it's that shiny object it's, Oh, that next shiny piece.

[00:04:01] And that's exactly what we talk about that can distract you. And keep you from working on revenue generating tasks in your business. Because, Oh, Threads is out. I'm going to hop over here and try this. Oh, I don't really do short form video, but I love Tik Tok. And then the next thing, instead of putting content on it, you've watched it for 45 minutes.

[00:04:24] And it's probably not research for your business or topics. It can be very distracting. I've done an episode before about this is I don't feel like there's ever been a better time to have a marketing plan to help keep you focused on tasks that help you reach your goals.

[00:04:49] Social media is one of these amazing tools, but it can also be a time suck and now that there's been this amazing spotlight shined on AI. For those listening that think that artificial intelligence is brand new. Nope. It's been around for quite a while. It is something that I've been fortunate with my tech background, to utilize, it just wasn't packaged in a way that was necessarily the easiest or the user interface wasn't what you see nowadays.

[00:05:25] And I share with people, if you've used Google Maps. You've used artificial intelligence, and I think only thing people hear is what's maybe on the news or what's on the headlines. 

[00:05:37] Cathy Macrae: Or in the movies. There's some movies in the evils of the artificial intelligence world and it's coming for us.

[00:05:45] Kristina Stubblefield: Exactly. Now this is going to date me, but I can remember having conversations with people about AOL. No I'm not getting on that. And then when they started the community, which, 'cause I'll jokingly say I've done websites all the way back to the A O L community.

[00:06:01] And when people have this glazed look, they have no clue what I'm talking about. It is before websites were actually websites, they were like a landing page where they existed was inside of AOL. And that's the thing is people were so hesitant to use AOL.

[00:06:21] It didn't go away. It started this revolution with the Internet. That's what I tell people right now, what you're able to do with artificial intelligence, you're really getting in on the ground floor. The things that I like to focus on with AI for people, it's about it saving people time.

[00:06:43] People get so frustrated in their own way. I'm guilty of it too. Perfectionism. I don't want to put that post out because I don't know if that wording makes sense. Does that sound right? You're constantly questioning instead of taking action. And interesting enough, this is a topic that you embraced when I first put out back a few months ago, when I was starting to teach people and take the lid off of this AI and how you could just get started.

[00:07:15] What did it look like? How could it be used specifically for wedding professionals and you got involved in that free class. 

[00:07:24] Cathy Macrae: Yeah, first of all, I would always consider myself to be a tech person. Okay I love my iPad. I live on my computer regards to work and stuff like that.

[00:07:35] I love technology. I'd heard a little bit about Google maps and Grammarly. And I'd heard about ChatGPT and I just hadn't taken that next step. And I do remember signing up hey, Kristina knows a fair amount about this stuff. She's doing a class, let's go take that in. And the word that I use and I can't help it is mind blowing. When I saw it in action, when I saw you doing things like brainstorm 30 days of content ideas, or write a caption for this social media post about this specific thing.

[00:08:11] And it spits it out in seconds where I know for a fact that same caption could have taken me 30 minutes to an hour to write. I know a lot of people, and what I like is I look at it as using it as a tool. It's a framework. And, people talk about it stifling your creativity and stuff.

[00:08:35] You still are putting in the prompts. You're still giving it the information. And most importantly, I believe you take what they're giving you, and then you refine it and make it your own. Put your own personal brand on it and adjust it accordingly. And that still keeps your voice. The amount of time it saves is unbelievable.

[00:08:57] And I don't know about you, but, I'm trying to juggle a few things. And, we're supposed to practice that work life balance, it makes me able to breathe again. 

[00:09:08] Kristina Stubblefield: That's a really interesting that you share it from that perspective. And if you're listening to this and you're like, what is Cathy talking about?

[00:09:15] Prompts. That's what you put into it. That's what you type on the screen or paste on the screen. It's basically what you're asking of an AI software. And, there's so many out there. I refer to ChatGPT because there is a free version for it. The class that I did, which is available and I'll share the links in the show notes, but I use the free version specifically in this class to show you didn't have to start by paying for ChatGPT or another software. I think ChatGPT is a great place to start. Now, you have to remember it's in beta and people ask where's that content being pulled from? And like Cathy mentioned, I do feel like anything that anything that ChatGPT spits out that you want to copy and paste and use on your own, I feel like should be ran through a plagiarism checker just to make sure that you're doing your due diligence that is not basically just copying off someone else. Now, I also share a lot about like you mentioned, Cathy, about changing out the words. You wanted to showcase your own personality. 

[00:10:28] I've had many people ask me, like, how do I just get started. Well you mentioned it off the bat. One of the first things that I showed in the free training is ideas. So many times we can get in our own way. I work with people in all different industries, but one lane of our business has to do with wedding professionals. And I feel like that industry, you have a lot of content that you can pull from (knowledge in your head, pictures from events, meetings that you have with clients) compared to other industries. And I really think just starting, you can use an AI software like ChatGPT to brainstorm. Like you said, whether it's post ideas, reel ideas, TikTok ideas top 10 this, top five that, just to give you, oh, okay.

[00:11:25] I wanna talk about wedding flowers. You just need something to help you move the needle to actually take action and move forward. But then one of the other places, I a lot of times suggest people start, how many social media posts have you done in the past ? Hundreds? Thousands? 

[00:11:44] Cathy Macrae: I was going to say, I think I'm well into the thousands.

[00:11:47] Kristina Stubblefield: You've probably done an excellent job about what you've posted out there. You can actually take what you posted a year ago, copy that post, paste it into ChatGPT with a prompt and ask it, rewrite this Instagram caption into three separate Instagram posts that are engaging with a call to action. My point in sharing this is, it's probably still relevant. You just don't want to copy a caption you did a year ago and paste it and say, here's a new Instagram post today. Now I know that there's people out there that do that and I'm not judging, but I'm just giving another scenario.

[00:12:36] You don't have to be an AI expert or feel like you have to do all of this homework to learn this technology, this tool. How many times do we find that you can use this tool out of the box, sign up for an account, and either get some ideas or have it rewrite some of the things you've already done in the past and help you save time.

[00:13:00] Cathy Macrae: I like even the idea you said you can take older posts and do that. They talk about, once again, we're supposed to connect with different people on different platforms. But they all have their own little idiosyncrasies. So to take an Instagram post and I say, rewrite it now for Facebook.

[00:13:19] Whereas I used to just do the same and just accept that my Facebook ones didn't quite get as much engagement or rewrite this for TikTok. Rewrite it for Pinterest, LinkedIn, any of those ones. Once again, it's taking the contents that's there and adjusting it, adapting it, you still have final say. And even one thing I thought of when we were talking about the double checking and plagiarism. When we do, for example, that we are going to write a blog or something, we do research. Even when we were in school, we were writing term papers and stuff, you would do research. We were taught right from the beginning you can't take what someone says and copy it verbatim. You had to acquire your information and then put it in your own words. So this is the same kind of thing. And as I said, we do have that responsibility. As I said, AI is giving us information.

[00:14:18] Kristina Stubblefield: I'll tell you one of the examples I gave that you may remember is sometimes if we have to reply to an email, or we may have to address a situation through email, and how long have you stared at the blinking cursor, wondering how you're going to start this email because you don't want to come across as what do I want to use? Not very nice, it's not that you're not wanting to nicely say what you want, but you have a message you have to get across.

[00:14:50] Cathy Macrae: That one alone was when I saw that it was we all have difficult clients or vendors and we're writing the thing and you're doing everything you can not to put tone in the email message, but when you write it out and then same thing, you can put it into ChatGPT and ask it to, and I'd have to look it up, whether we wrote it was more polite or with less tone. But when you saw the rewritten one, once again, my jaw was on the floor going, Oh, this is worth it for that alone. Just to once again, super polite says was it needs to say, but I know myself, I can take two or three hours to write that email trying to be professional, keep it above board . And it was like, this did this in a fraction of a second. 

[00:15:45] Kristina Stubblefield: And I think the thing about that is I'll give an example. You can take and put a prompt in, put into ChatGPT rewrite this email in a friendly tone with this closing or with this call to action in a lot of times I do colon, space, and then paste in the email. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a difficult situation. Sometimes how I talk and my lingo isn't the easiest way to explain something. So sometimes instead of sitting there looking at the blinking cursor for five minutes, how can I reword this? Oh, no, I don't like that word. Let me go out and look up a synonym.

[00:16:30] Oh, let me go and look. What did I send back a year ago to this person in that email? I can go right to ChatGPT and I can say write an email about this and paste. And that's the best part about it is you don't have to use exactly what it spits out. So there's so many scenarios, especially in the wedding business, where you know in your head, those bullet points that you need to get out in an email. You don't know where to start. You don't know how to summarize, or you think that maybe this is going to come across in one tone or another, and you can have it rewritten for you. So there's so many options. That aren't really even marketing related, but let's be honest, we all come back to communications.

[00:17:14] Communication is such a foundation of your business and anything that can help you get your message across, that's all you want. You want to say this to this person and there you get back 5, 10, 15 minutes that adds up whether it just be a few times a week.

[00:17:32] You can have it help you write a blog post. I'm a big fan of that. Now, again, I'm a stickler when it comes to this as I really feel like that should be ran through a plagiarism checker.

[00:17:47] And I know how that shiny object can look. Oh my gosh, there's four paragraphs. There's a title, there's an opening and there's a conclusion. I can copy this and paste it. This is my blog post. Now there's other softwares out there that automatically do that as part of their package. Most of them are not free, but you don't have to worry about that plagiarism part of it. But my personal take on it is take the time to run it through. You want it to be your own words and it's worth taking five minutes to read through that blog post, make it be a representation of your brand , your business and yourself.

[00:18:27] I get so excited about this topic because when you look down the tracks and you're not just looking at someone that's thinking, could I use ChatGPT? I should learn more about AI. It might help me in my business. But when you look a little bit down the tracks, like where you're at with it. You're so excited about talking about how it saves you this and saves you that and gave you back this. And I want everyone to see the opportunities that lie with a tool like this.

[00:19:00] And to think we're just getting started. 

[00:19:04] Cathy Macrae: As I said, I need a new word, but I keep saying mind blowing. 

[00:19:07] Kristina Stubblefield: Why don't you ask ChatGPT? 

[00:19:11] Cathy Macrae: But I didn't bring it up, right? I'll have to find another word, but 

[00:19:17] Kristina Stubblefield: You will have to report back so we can put that in the show notes that Cathy found another word, but honestly, you're right.

[00:19:25] Even me with my tech background and market, it is mind blowing, it's almost limitless at how it can be incorporated into your business. 

[00:19:35] Cathy Macrae: I do think you have to see examples that are relevant to what you do. As I said, you can hear about it. That's nice and stuff like this, but something that's going to make you see it.

[00:19:47] And that's what I liked about the course that you offered. And that was the free course because you gave us relevant examples. And as I said, I could leave that, I think it was about an hour long, if that? 

[00:20:00] Kristina Stubblefield: Yes, right about an hour. 

[00:20:02] Cathy Macrae: Yeah, but I could get off that course and go over and do it right away.

[00:20:07] And I had at least, I'm going to say seven, probably to ten, concrete examples of how to use it. And it wasn't rocket science, which is also what is so amazing about it. But we refine ourselves when we ask just a minute, you could say to ChatGPT write me a social media post on the things you should do when planning a wedding.

[00:20:32] Okay. And you're going to get a response. But you're going to get a better response. If you say as a professional wedding planner, write an Instagram post for newly engaged couples, explaining the top five things they should do to plan a wedding in an educational tone. And then you push the button and you're going to get oh, and then you could say, include the call to action and hashtags as well. And you're going to get a way better answer. So it's learning and refining our, I'm going to call it our questioning skills, but how we ask for information and the best thing about AI and ChatGPT is it's learning as well. So the more kinds of things we ask it on the same kind of topic, the better and more refined our answers are going to get.

[00:21:28] Kristina Stubblefield: And that's one thing to share is if you're using ChatGPT, you definitely want to look to the right hand side and you wanna give feedback based on the answer it gives you. You can give it a thumbs up, you can give a thumbs down and that can really help. It's a learning model, and that's the thing is, I think is unique for people to hear about that is that it is a machine basically that can learn from the feedback you provide it. And I think on one hand, that can be very scary for people. The best part about something like this is you don't have to know everything A to Z to get started. You don't have to write paragraph long questions or prompts to get started using it. And if you're a wedding professional like Cathy mentioned, I'll put the link in the show notes to get to that free class. I believe the recorded version is 45 minutes and I went through eight ways to begin to use ChatGPT for your wedding business, and it was all completely wedding related for wedding professionals.

[00:22:41] I can share with you, we are going to give you a pdf that you can download. This is something that Cathy put together. She's taken some of the things she's learned and when I was reading over this pdf, I really smiled because I was so proud, not only that she listened, took notes, but implemented.

[00:23:05] I've done classes and courses and taught in person, I don't know, 20 years. And one of the biggest things for me has always been, you can throw all of this stuff at a person in an hour, two hour, three hour course, class but if they don't ever do anything with it.

[00:23:24] That's the thing for me is even when I do free classes or workshops, I always want to give people a way that they can implement it immediately in their business. They don't have to get off here and now they've got five pages of homework and that's going to sit for a month and they're not going to actually put it to use.

[00:23:42] But that's why I smiled reading through this PDF because you applied the information I shared with you. You may or may not have heard some of it before, but you applied and then grew with it. You basically grew using this tool, this technology for your own business. And for me, I can't ask anything more than the people who sign up for the free class, but actually go through it and then put it to use for their business.

[00:24:15] I couldn't want any more out of it. 

[00:24:16] Cathy Macrae: As I said, it, oh, maybe this is my word, it's a game changer. Instead of mind blowing, it's a game changer. 

[00:24:24] Kristina Stubblefield: I feel like I use that a lot. 

[00:24:27] Cathy Macrae: As I said, it's true. And same thing if I'm going to invest my time, whether it's a workshop, whether it's a conference or something, I want those takeaways.

[00:24:38] And you're right. It can't be something that's going to take me months to put into place. I need something that was going to walk out of that room and I can get some immediate results. And that's what this course was. As I said, even another, we were talking about the emails, but I've started redoing a lot of my onboarding stuff with couples.

[00:24:58] Basic responses when someone sends an email inquiry and stuff, I can use ChatGPT to refine it and rework it. I'm going to say that it still needs my spin , but I said, the more I use it, the more applications I can figure out for it. And it really truly is limitless.

[00:25:22] Kristina Stubblefield: It is limitless. It's just getting started and not overwhelming yourself with it being technology, a software, AI. Don't get all in your head. You can go on, sign up for a free ChatGPT account, and just go in and start using it with some very basic things. And if you're looking for some steps, tutorials passed this PDF that we're going to share, you can get the free class that is available.

[00:25:52] And then if you decide that you're ready to take the next step and level up, there's another course that I offer. After you're through the free one, or if you've already been using ChatGPT and you're like, okay, how can I take this to the next level? How can I get more detailed with this? And that's what that next course Effortless Business Promotion is about is really helping you level up with using AI.

[00:26:17] And again, a lot of it has been around ChatGPT because that's what people are familiar with. They've heard about it. But for someone like me, my team we probably use right now, 7 to 10 different AI softwares. Depending. Is it podcast related, video related, course related, social media related. There are other softwares out there that you can get advanced with or start to use it with clients that you work with and things like that.

[00:26:48] But guess what? You have a free option to get started. And that's, I think the biggest thing for Cathy was once she got started, she has not stopped.

[00:27:00] Cathy Macrae: I went right to the paid version because you've, once again, you talked about your access to it during busy times. And my, once again, time is really important to me.

[00:27:12] So it's okay, I want to access. And it was only like. I think 20 bucks a month 

[00:27:17] Kristina Stubblefield: At the time of this recording, I believe it's 20 dollars a month. 

[00:27:21] Cathy Macrae: One thing is you're talking, I've been doing this other course this week. And one of the phrases was, it says complexity is the enemy of execution.

[00:27:29] Kristina Stubblefield: Say it louder for the people in the back. 

[00:27:31] Cathy Macrae: Complexity is the enemy of execution. So if it comes across as too hard, it stops. It becomes a roadblock for us from accomplishing it.

[00:27:42] And I'm going to be really honest. A lot of the people that I work with and help with social media, technology is scary for them. And I think that is normal. And the fear of the unknown, or do we have the skills to do it ? And I always have believed that it doesn't matter what the age is or something, you can show someone how to do something. But the key part is giving it to them in steps that they can handle and at a level that they can achieve success at it, right away. And then once they've had a little bit of time, then they can work on the next step. I always joke about and think about it as wedding planners or decorators when they first started, they had to tie those dreadful chair sashes on chairs. And when someone first did it, the ends are like this far apart. And you're like, no, you got to do it again. Once they've been doing it for a while, they get better at it. But you got to go through this period of time where it takes you 20 to 30 minutes to get one stupid chair sash done at the beginning until you figure out the trick.

[00:28:43] And social media, ChatGPT, anything related with technology is exactly the same. So as I said, starting with simple steps that you can succeed at, that you can see the difference, that you can experience immediate results. 

[00:29:00] Kristina Stubblefield: And I think because it has to do with tech or software, people are a little skittish about it.

[00:29:07] Understandably. When it's not something you work with all the time, or it's not something that you're comfortable with, but I think seeing examples, like you mentioned, can really help open up your mind to the possibilities. And I'm so glad that you shared that because I think that's something that has been a game changer for people to open up their mind that they could embrace this and we talked in the beginning, social media is not going anywhere. We cannot control what platforms come out, what platforms come and go, what features are added or taken away, but what we do have control of is the content that we put out. And I always say quality over quantity and again, I'm going back to that shiny object syndrome is just because somebody else is doing something doesn't mean that you have to.

[00:30:05] And my personal opinion is an AI software can help you keep up with consistency. It's not because you don't have the knowledge. It's not because you don't know what to share, but it's sitting down in front of that blank screen that throws everyone off. And when there's a tool that can help get that knowledge out of your head. That information about your business, product or services that I've always said people need to know about you offer something and if you're not talking about it and you're not sharing it on social media, how are people going to know outside your circle and in the wedding industry? That's so important because of engaged couples. It's a constant turnover. 

[00:30:51] Cathy Macrae: It's also really important is to remember why most of us are using social media, we're trying to advertise and promote our business and services. You talk about going back sort of the dark ages. People used to pay hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars, to advertise for something as simple, even as you used to put your ad in a special phone book called the Yellow Pages.

[00:31:12] Or if you had to put it in, in a magazine, but the only way you could advertise was literally to spend money. And that even was doing brochures that people would leave on your car windows or mail outs and stuff like that. Social media has given us a way that we can literally advertise and we say for free. The other word is organically is the word we use. In a way, I don't believe it is necessarily for free, because while it doesn't cost us physical dollars per se, it does cost us time. And our time is also valuable. Something like AI, and in this case, ChatGPT, or any of the other AI options that are out there, are saving us time.

[00:31:58] So they are saving us precious, very precious time. 

[00:32:01] Kristina Stubblefield: And I think that's the thing is your time is money. If you're a wedding planner and you're at an event running an event, you're getting paid to be there. You're providing a service in exchange for money . If you sat down at a computer for an hour or two a week and work on your business, that's an hour or two a week.

[00:32:23] Let's be honest. You're all probably laughing. Like what in the world is she talking about? If you're sitting down for an hour or two a week, I hope you're using automation and delegation. Because you're running a business. And that's where I want to help people get as I want your business to get to a place where it runs without you keep churning.

[00:32:44] Like you have to manually turn. 

[00:32:46] Cathy Macrae: You shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every single day. 

[00:32:50] Kristina Stubblefield: Exactly. And for the wedding industry, how great is it that a lot of times you deal with the same type of event? They're not exactly the same. That's not what I'm saying. But where you can put systems, processes, questionnaires, contact forms.

[00:33:06] All of that can be repurposed. You've got an advantage out there to others industries, because some of them, it's not an option like that. Now there's other ways to use things . I think the reason that this is so important to us is online visibility is never going anywhere.

[00:33:24] It's not, in my opinion, it's not going to go anywhere. Other than if you're not found when people are looking you up or looking for a business that offers the services or products that you do. If they can't find you there on Google, social media, the information not being on your website, you are not going to be part of the conversation.

[00:33:50] You're not going to be one of the options that they have down to consider as one of their wedding vendors. 

[00:33:56] Cathy Macrae: And whether we like it or not, if our competitors are doing it better than we are, you're going to get lost in the shuffle. The train is leaving the station and we each get to make a decision whether we're going to get on it or not .

[00:34:10] Kristina Stubblefield: That makes me think of this. And I've started to hear some of this and I'm not surprised. Some people that have been in the business for quite a while, they're not getting as much as engagement on social media. I'm not going to go down and say leads or booked events. I'm going to say they're not getting the reach and or engagement on social media, that sometimes someone that is newer in the business is getting. Why? Who's showing up more? The person that isn't as busy and has more time to put things out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Google. Oh and also work on their website and update their pictures and their videos all the time. And let's all be honest when busy wedding season comes around, social media, updating your website, consistency is out the window. And that's not saying it's right or wrong because there's only so much time in a day. But when you just said what you did, that the train is leaving the station, and in our world, the way I look at that is, If you're not showing up, and your competitors are, you're taking yourself out of the equation automatically.

[00:35:28] Cathy Macrae: You talked about new shiny objects, and all of us can probably relate to I know when I used to teach band to middle school, if something new, electronic wise came into the school, it just got to a point where I give it to the kids to set up and say, show me how to use it afterward. Once you got it done and they have it done, or if you've got nieces or nephew or your own kids, you watch them.

[00:35:51] They're like little tech freaks. And I mean that in the nicest way, but they know how to do this. The younger generation has grown up on social media. This is not new to them. They're on it. But one thing that I think our more experienced wedding professionals have is that expertise and knowledge, but they just don't always know how to share it.

[00:36:16] Kristina Stubblefield: Don't be the best kept secret, no matter what you offer. It's not going to help anyone, especially yourself. And I say that, do you know, I've literally had people say that to me. Why don't you share more about this? It's you're the best kept secret. And I'm like, oh, yikes, I don't want to hear that.

[00:36:38] Cathy Macrae: Well, and I look at people and this is what you are dedicated to doing, and this is what I'm trying to do as well is unlock the secrets and show people easy ways that they can look and appear current and relative in the social media or the digital universe and get their name out there, get their information shared. Because let's also be honest, there is a lot of crappy information being shared out there and you sit there sometimes and you watch it. You're going what the heck and stuff like this. So that's part of our job as well. I think I just did a post, it was related to social media.

[00:37:18] But fact versus fiction, and you could easily take that same content concept and change it over to your area of specialty in the wedding industry. 

[00:37:30] Kristina Stubblefield: Amen. There are so many things that you just said, and we could go on and on. That is why I've even said something to Cathy about maybe coming back to dive into not only AI, but social media. And Cathy made a post recently that stood out to me. Because she's hopped on my 30 reels in 30 days challenge and 

[00:37:56] Cathy Macrae: Day 15.

[00:37:57] Kristina Stubblefield: Yes. So by the time you hear this episode, you can look back on our 30 reels in 30 days challenge. One of the things that you said that stood out to me was about it's ok to embrace, and I'm summarizing, now this is not word for word. I'm putting it in Kristina ChatGPT and saying spit out a summary of what Cathy said. But you said something about, It's okay to embrace one social media platform and be really good on it and show up before you move and add another one in. I'm summarizing basically what you said.

[00:38:35] Cathy Macrae: And I even compared it to if you had a friend that said they want to have a large family, would you tell them to go out and have quintuplets right away? Or would you suggest they start with 1? And anyone that's a parent remembers those early days of the newborn infancy stage and the sleepless nights.

[00:38:54] But usually what we say to people is, you have the newborn, starts getting older, you work through this, you try and get a few bit more sleep, and as they're getting into that toddler time, maybe then you start thinking about having the next one. And then a little bit later on, the next one. And that seems like a much more sane way to do it.

[00:39:15] Then having a quintuplets right away. While we do know, and don't get me wrong, I think it's important to be on multiple platforms, but when you're trying to get started, you need to focus on one. Learn the basics, get good at that, start mastering the techniques and as you build your confidence, right?

[00:39:35] Cause we need to be experienced success, then add in the next one. And I think that's really important is you have to be able to take action and you have to be able to experience success. And if you can't do either of those two things, you're not going to get anywhere fast. 

[00:39:53] Kristina Stubblefield: I think we can continue the conversation. You're part of my Facebook group, WedPro Business Community, and anyone is invited to join that group. You can come find that group on Facebook, join, and each week that podcast episodes are released, we're putting out something about, let's have a conversation about this, have questions, we're going to help you answer them.

[00:40:17] And Cathy is part of that group that you could tag her or tag myself in it. And the other thing is, as I mentioned, I referred to a PDF a couple of times throughout this, no matter if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube, if you go to the show notes or the description, there'll be a link for the PDF there where you can go in and you can download it.

[00:40:38] It has is not only tips and tricks, some examples of prompts, but also a little overview about ChatGPT and getting started. Then as I said if you want access to that free class, there will be a link that you can click on to get access and it's set up where you can watch it at your own convenience and your own pace. Now Cathy I know I want to have you back.

[00:41:02] We'll have to get our schedules together. Thank you so much for your time coming on and being a guest. For anybody that wants to connect up with you or anything additional that you want to share, please do 

[00:41:13] Cathy Macrae: Once again, first of all, thank you so much for having me as a guest.

[00:41:16] I've been looking forward to it and having this opportunity to connect and share with your audience today. Probably the easiest place to find me is over on Instagram, and I'm

[00:41:27] at iamcathymacrae. I encourage you to come over there. The whole purpose of that account is to share social media tips and marketing tips. I say small businesses and entrepreneurs. But let's be honest, the wedding family is where my heart is. And so that's what I share with, and even sometimes to give people ideas for you to share on social media.

[00:41:54] We have so much that we're juggling on our plates. If there's anything I can do that can help you get over that hurdle and move that step forward. I want to help you see it happen because I also know that you guys have great things to share, but sometimes you just don't know the best way to get your message out there.

[00:42:13] Kristina Stubblefield: And if you take anything away from this episode, we gave you many nuggets throughout this. Please don't be the best kept secret. Please.

[00:42:22] Cathy Macrae: No. 

[00:42:22] Kristina Stubblefield: People need to know about your business, your passion. There's a reason why you are in the wedding business. It is a lot of blood, sweat and tears. I've seen it firsthand.

[00:42:33] I've been in it firsthand. I was in the industry as a wedding professional myself for seven years. It is a very unique industry. I know what goes into it and don't be the best kept secret share with people what you have to offer. There are engaged couples, parents of engaged couples out there that are looking for people that offer your services or your products. They just want to find you online. So many takeaways from this Cathy, thank you again for your time.

[00:43:06] Again, get all of the links in the notes, or if you're watching on YouTube, get it in the description . Cathy and myself both look forward to seeing you inside the Facebook group, WedPro Business Community. Cathy, thanks again. 

[00:43:21] Thank you. 

[00:43:22] Cathy Macrae: It was a pleasure. 

[00:43:24] Kristina Stubblefield: All right, everybody until next time, take care.