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00:01:34.640 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about

00:01:40.960 | upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:01:42.840 | Now, so many business leaders say that you should just focus on one thing and

00:01:47.520 | not spread yourself too thin on so many different projects, and that the way to

00:01:51.720 | success is to laser focus on one goal, one product, one business idea, and

00:01:56.200 | tune everything else out.

00:01:57.240 | But our guest today, Jen Glantz, throws all that advice out the window because

00:02:02.440 | she's an entrepreneur with multiple businesses, multiple streams of income,

00:02:06.240 | and she thrives at doing it.

00:02:07.720 | She started her first business, Bridesmaid for Hire, after an ad she

00:02:11.600 | placed in Craigslist went viral.

00:02:13.240 | But she's also written three books, over 1,500 articles for publications from

00:02:17.600 | Forbes, to the Today Show, to the Washington Post.

00:02:20.040 | She hosts a podcast, You're Not Getting Any Younger, which I had the pleasure of

00:02:23.760 | being a guest on a few weeks ago.

00:02:25.640 | And if that's not enough, she has 3 newsletters, sells digital courses, does

00:02:30.200 | professional coaching and speaking.

00:02:31.680 | And oh, she has her own game called The Newlywed Card Game.

00:02:35.840 | I have no idea how she does it all.

00:02:38.400 | So let's jump in and find out.

00:02:39.920 | Jen, thank you for being here.

00:02:42.840 | Wow, Chris.

00:02:43.640 | Thank you for having me.

00:02:44.440 | I honestly forget all that I do until you just read that intro.

00:02:47.960 | And then I was like, "Wow, that is a lot.

00:02:49.760 | That is a lot."

00:02:50.280 | But I'm really proud of it all.

00:02:51.360 | So my first question is just, did you always think you would be someone that

00:02:54.720 | had all of these projects and businesses going on?

00:02:57.720 | In all honesty, I was that person at my full-time job that couldn't just do my

00:03:02.040 | job.

00:03:02.440 | I was working at a startup as a copywriter and I couldn't just write.

00:03:06.280 | I had to know how the sales team was doing.

00:03:08.520 | I wanted to know what a project manager was.

00:03:10.520 | Like I was always so curious about other things.

00:03:13.160 | I was also the person at my full-time job that did the whole job within like a

00:03:16.840 | couple of hours and had the rest of the day to do nothing.

00:03:19.600 | And that's when I started writing a blog and started doing all my own work while

00:03:23.080 | I was getting paid at my full-time job.

00:03:24.960 | So I always knew that I was never a person who wanted to do just one thing,

00:03:29.440 | but I never knew what I was going to ultimately do.

00:03:32.840 | I majored in poetry in college.

00:03:34.720 | So I feel like I set myself up for a life of question marks.

00:03:38.120 | And when I graduated, I just knew I didn't want to live a standard life.

00:03:42.160 | I knew I didn't want to be someone else's employee.

00:03:44.520 | I knew I wanted so much more from myself, but I didn't necessarily know where that

00:03:49.200 | would take me.

00:03:49.840 | The first side hustle was Bridesmaid for Hire, right?

00:03:53.720 | Well, actually I would say my first side hustle was a blog.

00:03:56.080 | I started in 2011 called the things I learned from. And I wrote that blog.

00:04:00.600 | I had no readers that grew and grew and grew.

00:04:03.080 | And eventually that led to me getting a book deal and that led to me becoming a

00:04:07.240 | freelance writer. So while I didn't necessarily make money off of the blog,

00:04:10.720 | when I first started it,

00:04:11.760 | it led to all of these different opportunities that propelled my journey.

00:04:15.440 | And I'd started the blog because I was working a really bad job and nobody

00:04:20.760 | would publish my writing and I wanted to be a writer.

00:04:23.200 | So I started this blog on WordPress and that was a game changer that set me up

00:04:27.440 | for so much more to come.

00:04:28.760 | So I think one takeaway there is it doesn't have to be a business to

00:04:32.560 | necessarily become a business. So if you're listening and you're thinking, Oh,

00:04:35.600 | like I have this thing, I don't know how to make money from it.

00:04:37.560 | Your example here is you did this thing that made no money.

00:04:40.240 | And now you have, I don't know, seven, eight,

00:04:42.440 | like different businesses and streams of income that kind of all came from that.

00:04:46.960 | Yeah.

00:04:47.560 | How did you know when to spend more time on the blog or any other project versus

00:04:52.560 | you had a day job?

00:04:53.880 | When I was working full time, I realized, okay,

00:04:57.000 | I don't necessarily need the income from other projects.

00:04:59.920 | So let me throw some things out there and see what sticks, see what's going well.

00:05:04.000 | I've always been a person who likes to work on multiple things.

00:05:07.760 | So I would wake up before work at 4am, work on one project,

00:05:11.200 | go to work and work on other projects that work, come home and do even more.

00:05:15.160 | So I would literally take if I was working on three side hustles and I would

00:05:18.120 | split my day to give each the same amount of time.

00:05:20.880 | Now there were some points when some blew up a little bit more and then I would

00:05:24.040 | spend weekends working on those and let the other ones fall behind.

00:05:27.640 | But one thing I've always vowed to myself is that if I created something that had

00:05:32.000 | an audience, whether a podcast, a blog, a newsletter,

00:05:34.640 | that I would not let them down.

00:05:36.360 | And what I mean by that is I would never miss a day when I owed them content.

00:05:40.880 | So my podcast comes out every Friday, my newsletter every Monday and my blog,

00:05:45.040 | used to come out every Tuesday. I would never, ever, ever miss a day.

00:05:48.440 | So if I had something with an audience,

00:05:50.160 | I always showed up for them no matter what. And I'm still that way.

00:05:54.480 | And I think when you're building and growing, you need consistency.

00:05:57.880 | That's everything in branding. And as a content creator,

00:06:00.640 | that's what gives you your credibility, especially early on.

00:06:03.600 | I have a newsletter and it comes out every two weeks and I think I've only

00:06:07.400 | missed one and there's at least a good reason behind the one that missed,

00:06:11.360 | but it forces me to not give it up. Even if it's your passion, right?

00:06:15.000 | Everyone always says for me, this podcast is a passion of mine.

00:06:17.920 | This newsletter is that doesn't mean that there are days where you're like, gosh,

00:06:21.000 | I just need a break. I think the consistency forces you to keep going.

00:06:24.640 | Otherwise the break you take could go longer than you want.

00:06:27.760 | Even fulfilling things can be hard.

00:06:29.400 | Yeah. And also when you're creating content,

00:06:32.080 | you want some sort of validation and I've learned early on as a writer,

00:06:35.600 | you're not going to get people who email you every week and say, good job.

00:06:38.520 | I love the show. Like that's a bonus.

00:06:40.720 | But I think if you still really want to take this seriously,

00:06:43.400 | you need validation in some sort of way.

00:06:45.360 | And I've always found that in accountability and being my own accountability

00:06:48.880 | buddy. So if I set deadlines, especially as an entrepreneur or a content creator,

00:06:53.280 | if I miss those deadlines, that's me failing myself.

00:06:56.520 | And if I make those deadlines, that's validation, that's accountability.

00:07:00.360 | And I've always been so firm on that,

00:07:02.640 | that me showing up is the only ticket I have to my own success.

00:07:07.200 | Whether or not people are going to praise me for my content,

00:07:10.200 | it allows me to know that I'm doing the work I need to do.

00:07:13.520 | That makes sense.

00:07:14.360 | And I'll give a shout out to a listener here named Darshan who sent me an email.

00:07:17.960 | It was like, Hey, I know most people write in and complain or ask questions.

00:07:20.480 | I'm just writing in to say thank you. And I was like, Oh man,

00:07:23.120 | it feels really good to get those emails because a lot of mediums podcasting,

00:07:26.920 | especially, it's not really easily a two way street.

00:07:29.640 | But now let's go back to this first big break, I guess you'd call it.

00:07:34.440 | You put this ad in Craigslist. What led to you even posting the ad?

00:07:38.920 | It's not like there was a bridesmaids for hire business that lots of people

00:07:42.640 | were doing and you just wanted to throw your hat in the ring.

00:07:44.680 | The truth is I had a really bad Friday night and I was rejected from an

00:07:49.760 | opportunity and I was feeling down about myself.

00:07:52.720 | And before that I had all of these friends getting married in my early twenties

00:07:56.840 | and I was always a bridesmaid.

00:07:58.240 | And that same night that I was feeling down about myself,

00:08:01.120 | I had two friends I hardly spoke to who ironically lived down the street.

00:08:06.160 | Two of those people on that same Friday night called me up and said, Hey,

00:08:09.920 | will you be my bridesmaid? It was so random.

00:08:12.760 | I was feeling so down about myself. I was venting to my roommate and I said,

00:08:16.560 | Carrie, what is going on? And she said, Jen, come on, it's obvious.

00:08:20.560 | These people are asking you because you're good at it.

00:08:22.920 | You're like some sort of professional.

00:08:24.800 | And I went home after my roommate had gone out and I just sat there and I was

00:08:29.400 | like, you know what? I'm so sick of where I am in my life.

00:08:32.680 | I'm so sick of feeling stuck. I'm so fed up also about being a bridesmaid.

00:08:37.320 | Let me do something about it.

00:08:38.680 | If I'm good at this skill and I have distant friends asking me,

00:08:41.920 | why not allow strangers to hire me? I didn't know a thing about business.

00:08:46.280 | I didn't know if this was going to work, but I said to myself, let me try it.

00:08:49.760 | So I went to craigslist.com, which is a website.

00:08:52.120 | My mom told me growing up never, ever, ever go to.

00:08:55.320 | And I posted the anonymous ad basically saying, Hey,

00:08:58.200 | if you need help at your wedding as a bridesmaid, I'll be there.

00:09:00.800 | I'll show up in the dress. I'll walk down the aisle.

00:09:02.880 | I'll dance with your weird uncle. I'll give the speech.

00:09:05.600 | I'll help you pee in your wedding dress,

00:09:07.280 | which is like actually a hard thing to do. And I posted the ad.

00:09:11.320 | I went to sleep. I lived my life.

00:09:13.280 | I didn't even check my email over the weekend. I just figured whatever.

00:09:16.840 | Nobody saw this Craigslist ad. I go to work Monday morning.

00:09:20.600 | And I see in my inbox,

00:09:21.800 | I have hundreds of emails from people all over the world that wanted to hire me.

00:09:26.640 | Let alone somebody in my office chatted me a link to a Buzzfeed news article

00:09:31.480 | about the ad saying, Oh my God, Jen, like this is you.

00:09:35.240 | Like you're in Buzzfeed.

00:09:36.560 | And my life literally changed over the course of a weekend without me even

00:09:40.840 | knowing it.

00:09:41.680 | I have so many questions. So I want to dig into both the business side of this,

00:09:46.840 | but because I think most people don't understand this business,

00:09:50.680 | what can you just share a little bit about the role,

00:09:53.280 | why people actually end up hiring you? Some surprising things you've learned.

00:09:57.400 | People hear this and they're like, this is so weird. Who would want to hire you?

00:10:01.440 | And I'm like, okay, just give me a couple seconds and I'll convince you.

00:10:04.040 | Number one, it's not a wedding planner.

00:10:06.120 | I don't help you pick your flowers or your dress or your venue.

00:10:09.040 | I don't do any of that. I am strictly your hired bridesmaid.

00:10:13.200 | I'm there as the personal assistant running to CVS cause you don't have tissues.

00:10:17.200 | I'm the social director who plans the bachelorette party and makes it fun.

00:10:21.000 | I'm the person who is the peacekeeper when the mother-in-law and you are

00:10:24.760 | fighting, I'd come between that and break that off.

00:10:27.440 | And I'm the on-call therapist.

00:10:28.920 | I'm the one you can call at two in the morning and vent about how stressed you

00:10:31.920 | are about your wedding. I am there for the people.

00:10:34.760 | I'd say there's two types of people who hire me.

00:10:37.320 | Type number one are people who have friends,

00:10:39.880 | but they need that professional embedded in their wedding party because their

00:10:43.520 | friends are a disaster and they want someone who's going to keep the peace,

00:10:47.160 | but also make sure they feel supported. And on the flip side,

00:10:50.320 | I have the person who hires me because they don't have any friends.

00:10:53.240 | And I know that sounds bizarre,

00:10:54.760 | but the truth is a lot of people out there don't have close,

00:10:58.000 | solid relationships. And when you get married, you need that support system.

00:11:02.800 | You need that person who's going to be there for you emotionally,

00:11:06.120 | mentally, and physically before your wedding. And on the day of,

00:11:09.720 | I am your bridesmaid. So what does that mean? While I wear the dress,

00:11:13.480 | I walk down the aisle, I dance on the dance floor. But aside from that,

00:11:17.160 | I also pretend to be a part of your life. So oftentimes I have a fake name,

00:11:21.800 | a fake backstory, and nobody in your life knows I'm hired.

00:11:25.240 | Sometimes not even the person you are marrying.

00:11:27.760 | So I take on that role as your friend. And I've been doing this for seven years.

00:11:32.280 | People called it crazy. Some people called it brilliant.

00:11:35.000 | I always called it a must need.

00:11:37.360 | And I remember doing my first wedding ever for a woman named Ashley from Maple

00:11:41.560 | Grove, Minnesota. I remember flying there, getting off the plane,

00:11:45.800 | thinking what are you about to do?

00:11:47.200 | You're about to show up at a stranger's wedding. Are you crazy?

00:11:50.440 | And when I got back on the plane to go back to New York, I remember thinking,

00:11:54.280 | Jen, this is something,

00:11:55.640 | and this is something that's going to be incredibly important to so many people's

00:11:59.760 | lives.

00:12:00.600 | And that's sort of why I started it and why I keep doing it till this day.

00:12:04.200 | I want to go two directions here. So I'll ask first,

00:12:07.000 | what are some of the fun, surprising things you've seen or learned?

00:12:11.680 | I always say that I'm a person who never liked weddings.

00:12:15.640 | I was never a person who planned a dream wedding.

00:12:17.960 | I could never care about my own wedding. I still don't like weddings.

00:12:21.440 | I think why I do this job is because I love helping strangers and chaotic

00:12:25.200 | situations. And that's what weddings are.

00:12:27.400 | I've learned so much about humans and love and

00:12:32.440 | relationship on this job that has completely reshaped how I think about humanity

00:12:37.160 | and both good ways and not so good ways.

00:12:39.480 | One thing I like to talk about that nobody really will mention is that cold feet

00:12:44.400 | is an absolute real thing that happens to many people on their wedding day.

00:12:49.080 | I call it the diving board effect.

00:12:50.840 | We're right before they're about to walk down the aisle.

00:12:53.360 | They know whether or not they're making a mistake.

00:12:55.920 | And these are people who might not have known before,

00:12:58.360 | but in that moment they know if you ask a lot of people who got divorced within

00:13:02.400 | the first year or so after their wedding, they will tell you,

00:13:05.040 | they knew in that moment they were making a mistake.

00:13:07.960 | And this is something so fascinating because a big part of my job is helping

00:13:12.000 | people when they have cold feet, whether a week before a month before,

00:13:15.480 | or five minutes before. So watching cold feet,

00:13:18.640 | something that you only see on TV actually be real was incredibly

00:13:23.120 | fascinating to me and difficult to handle at first.

00:13:26.320 | The other thing that I've learned too,

00:13:28.160 | which is a little different and difficult to mention is that a lot of people

00:13:31.920 | don't get married for love.

00:13:33.400 | A lot of people get married for love and something else.

00:13:37.440 | Pretty much all of us get married for love and something else.

00:13:40.880 | Some people don't get married for love at all,

00:13:43.080 | but some people get married for the and part,

00:13:45.000 | which might be financial security or might be because that person's going to

00:13:48.840 | provide them with a certain lifestyle or because they're at a certain age and

00:13:52.680 | this is just what they want to do.

00:13:54.160 | And I have heard a lot of people admit to me candidly what that and is.

00:13:58.880 | And that was fascinating to me as well.

00:14:00.880 | I always thought people just had like fairytale romances.

00:14:03.680 | And when I met my future husband back in the day,

00:14:06.600 | I started to realize that this was true. You fall in love,

00:14:10.640 | but what gets you to that finish line of marriage is always the and whatever

00:14:14.800 | that part is, whether positive or negative.

00:14:17.000 | And you said some people don't even have the love part. Yeah.

00:14:20.200 | Does that work out?

00:14:21.840 | And now you've been doing this long enough that you can see the end result.

00:14:25.000 | It's crazy. Cause a lot of people will say,

00:14:27.160 | you must be so good at knowing if a couple's going to make it.

00:14:30.160 | But the truth is you could never, ever,

00:14:31.800 | ever judge anybody else's relationship because people stay in relationships,

00:14:36.600 | just like they enter relationships for different reasons.

00:14:39.160 | So just because you think your friends out there are not going to make it,

00:14:42.280 | whatever type of relationship they have might be exactly what they're looking

00:14:45.920 | for and what they want.

00:14:46.880 | And it might be something so different than what you want.

00:14:49.480 | So a lot of people who are getting married because they want that person's

00:14:52.520 | money or because of whatever that reason is,

00:14:55.160 | they end up do staying together and it's because they got what they wanted and

00:14:58.760 | the other person got what they wanted as well.

00:15:00.880 | And while it might be very different than what I want, it works for them.

00:15:04.520 | So I think it is so hard to know if a couple is going to make it.

00:15:09.040 | When I played this game at weddings, the couples I was like, Oh,

00:15:11.880 | they're going to be together forever, two years in are divorced.

00:15:15.280 | So you don't really know.

00:15:16.520 | That's fascinating because I have some of those thoughts in my head, you know,

00:15:20.160 | Oh, that couple, they argue a lot or all this stuff.

00:15:23.400 | And so far I'm not anywhere close to being predictive of that behavior.

00:15:28.040 | Yeah. It might be their communication style.

00:15:30.080 | I can't tell you the amount of couples that right before they walked down the

00:15:32.600 | aisle, they're screaming at each other, they're cursing.

00:15:35.000 | And while that's like not healthy and not good,

00:15:38.280 | that's their communication style.

00:15:39.760 | That's how they work.

00:15:40.880 | And for some odd reason, it just works for them.

00:15:43.440 | Cold feet is one thing and then calling it off as another.

00:15:46.720 | Has that ever happened?

00:15:47.560 | Many times.

00:15:49.320 | I've actually been hired a couple of times to end engagements where the person had

00:15:53.280 | nobody in their life they could ask for that help from.

00:15:55.680 | So they'll call me up and we'll talk about the steps they need to take to get out

00:15:58.920 | of the engagement because they're scared to tell their parents or they're scared

00:16:01.920 | to tell their friends and they need that unbiased support system.

00:16:05.000 | But I've also been at weddings where they don't want to do it,

00:16:07.600 | where the bride tells me that she hates the groom and she wants out right now.

00:16:11.280 | And my perspective, which is different than a friend

00:16:14.120 | or a family member, is I really want what's best for you.

00:16:16.840 | Yeah, your friends and family want that, too.

00:16:18.880 | But in the moment when the spotlight is on, they just don't want you to be embarrassed.

00:16:22.600 | They just want you to do whatever you can do to just get this moment over with.

00:16:25.840 | So I've had a lot of people who we've had to end the wedding.

00:16:28.680 | I've had people who go through with the wedding, but they don't legally get married.

00:16:31.920 | But that's happened a lot.

00:16:33.240 | And that is not something I thought I'd have to deal with when I started the business.

00:16:37.160 | This is wild.

00:16:37.960 | And you said you've learned a lot about relationships.

00:16:39.800 | Obviously, you haven't learned how to predict divorce.

00:16:42.040 | But what are things that you've learned that people listening

00:16:44.960 | could apply to their own relationship?

00:16:47.640 | I always thought because of this job, I would never want to get married anymore

00:16:51.280 | just because I've seen so much.

00:16:52.960 | And when I started dating my now husband, I said to him after he proposed,

00:16:57.160 | we're going to do things differently.

00:16:58.680 | And I wasn't talking about the wedding.

00:17:00.200 | I was talking about what we had to do before we got married.

00:17:03.280 | I wanted to make sure we had all the checks and balances in place

00:17:06.560 | so that I knew that this was the right move for my life.

00:17:09.280 | So I made us meet with a divorce lawyer to talk about prenums

00:17:12.320 | and what that would look like.

00:17:13.440 | And if we want one, we didn't end up getting one.

00:17:16.000 | But I can absolutely see why that's so important.

00:17:18.480 | And you can get a postnum, which I never knew about.

00:17:21.120 | We talked to a financial advisor to talk about what we should do with our finances.

00:17:25.080 | And we didn't end up combining finances,

00:17:26.960 | but we went through the process of understanding that.

00:17:29.120 | We went to a marriage counselor to talk about why marriages fail.

00:17:32.800 | I literally was like, if you want to marry me,

00:17:34.920 | we are meeting with all of these professionals that people meet with

00:17:37.880 | once the marriage starts to go downhill before we get married.

00:17:41.600 | And I wanted us to have education on what marriage is and what changes

00:17:45.400 | and all of these things.

00:17:46.320 | And while he was like so freaked out and was just like,

00:17:49.160 | can't you be normal and enjoy our engagement?

00:17:51.320 | It helped me feel prepared.

00:17:53.840 | And I think a lot of couples have conversations,

00:17:57.280 | but they don't really go through these motions before they get married

00:18:00.320 | because nobody tells you it's OK to or that you should.

00:18:03.560 | Everybody in life sets you up to find love.

00:18:06.120 | They teach you how to date.

00:18:07.560 | Everyone helps you plan a wedding, but nobody helps you once you get married.

00:18:11.720 | You're just supposed to figure it out.

00:18:13.600 | And I didn't want us to figure it out.

00:18:15.680 | And that was something I've learned from the job is before you get married,

00:18:19.240 | go through a lot of these really tough conversations.

00:18:22.160 | And then once you get married, things might be a little easier for you.

00:18:25.280 | Even if you are married and haven't gotten into them, right?

00:18:28.320 | Let's say you're thinking about having kids.

00:18:29.880 | You could go talk to a marriage counselor and say, hey,

00:18:32.640 | what are the problems that we're going to face when this happens?

00:18:34.840 | What do you see?

00:18:35.640 | And what can we do now to find out how we would handle them

00:18:38.320 | and how we could do better?

00:18:39.480 | We're proactive with so many things in our life

00:18:41.480 | that matter, like our health or sometimes our careers.

00:18:44.120 | But we're not always so proactive with relationships.

00:18:46.440 | And that's what I've really tried to be with my partner is

00:18:48.960 | we don't really have a ton of big problems now.

00:18:51.600 | We have our standard problems.

00:18:52.960 | But what can we know so that when we start to get into those problem areas,

00:18:57.120 | we know the tools that we can turn to and we know what to do.

00:18:59.760 | We're by no means perfect.

00:19:01.120 | But I think a combination of therapy and curiosity and meeting

00:19:04.160 | with a lot of these professionals has really helped us

00:19:06.480 | at least have these conversations in a neutral playing field

00:19:10.760 | rather than an awkward, hey, things are getting a little bad between us.

00:19:14.280 | What should we do now?

00:19:15.200 | Because it's very hard to rise to the occasion

00:19:17.200 | when your relationship is starting to go downhill.

00:19:19.080 | Being a parent can be scary, whether it's watching your toddler

00:19:23.720 | jump on your new couch naked during potty training

00:19:26.600 | or the indescribable pain of stepping on tiny plastic dinosaurs

00:19:30.720 | in your bare feet, both of which happened to me recently.

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00:20:39.040 | Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it used to be.

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00:21:50.480 | Must be 21 plus, not available in all locations.

00:21:53.520 | So getting back to the business side of this,

00:21:57.840 | what advice do you have for someone trying to figure out

00:22:00.680 | what could be their side hustle?

00:22:03.640 | I think the important thing is think about what you're getting asked

00:22:07.080 | to do constantly in your life.

00:22:08.760 | What are your friends asking you for help with?

00:22:11.040 | What are the things that you're spending your quality time doing?

00:22:14.160 | And if that's just reading different Reddit boards or reading certain books

00:22:17.480 | or watching certain TV shows or caring about certain hobbies,

00:22:20.480 | what are those things and can you monetize them?

00:22:22.560 | I've literally tried to monetize everything I love in this life.

00:22:25.720 | And while that might sound like really creepy or cheesy, it works for me.

00:22:29.200 | But I think what are the things that you enjoy?

00:22:32.000 | What are the things that people consider you an unofficial expert in?

00:22:35.200 | And what are the businesses or side hustles that you would want to spend

00:22:38.760 | all day, Saturday and Sunday doing?

00:22:41.560 | Once you start to think about that, you might come closer to an idea.

00:22:45.080 | The other thing to think about that I love to do is start tracking problems

00:22:48.640 | that you have every single day.

00:22:50.120 | What are the many problems you have from the second you wake up

00:22:52.840 | till the time you go to sleep?

00:22:54.440 | Businesses are created because of problems need to be solved.

00:22:57.360 | And if you start monitoring and figuring out

00:22:59.520 | what the common problems you or your friends have,

00:23:01.960 | you might find yourself a really cool untapped business idea.

00:23:05.920 | Where are you tracking these?

00:23:07.240 | Are you writing business ideas and problems down in a notebook?

00:23:10.080 | What's your method?

00:23:11.280 | I'm a paper and pencil kind of person.

00:23:13.360 | I don't really like a lot of technology and apps.

00:23:15.600 | If you saw my desk right now, I have a stack of papers and I use that.

00:23:19.520 | There's also a great website called notepd.com

00:23:22.160 | where you can write 10 ideas a day.

00:23:24.200 | It's like a community.

00:23:25.000 | They can comment on it and it's free and people can add to your idea list.

00:23:28.600 | You can scan a site like that or read it or other places and write down

00:23:32.640 | a list of so many business ideas just on what people are venting about.

00:23:36.560 | When I think about how to expand Bridesmaid for Hire,

00:23:39.160 | I often go on wedding forums or in wedding Facebook groups,

00:23:42.080 | and I just read what problems people have and how they're trying to solve them.

00:23:45.760 | And then I think of a digital product or something that I could offer

00:23:48.760 | that taps into that.

00:23:49.800 | When you're coming up with ideas,

00:23:52.880 | what advice do you have for someone who's stuck?

00:23:54.920 | If you're stuck with your own ideas, get out of your own head.

00:23:59.320 | So what does that mean?

00:24:00.560 | Number one, find people in your life and just casually have a conversation.

00:24:03.680 | I was telling Chris that my personal friends are like really annoyed by me

00:24:06.720 | because all I do when I see them is ask them questions.

00:24:09.880 | So I'll say to them like, Hey, what do you have an idea about this?

00:24:12.280 | This is my business idea. This is my newsletter idea.

00:24:14.400 | What do you think? Give me some ideas.

00:24:16.160 | And I'll write down their ideas and maybe I won't use them,

00:24:18.520 | but it'll get me thinking a different way.

00:24:20.560 | Sometimes when I'm feeling stuck, I just force myself through it.

00:24:23.800 | And I've learned this as a writer.

00:24:25.240 | There's no such thing as writer's block when you're on a tight deadline

00:24:28.640 | to finish a book that you're getting paid to do, you have to write.

00:24:31.000 | So sometimes you just force yourself through it.

00:24:33.040 | Open up a Word doc,

00:24:34.200 | take out a piece of paper and pen and just force yourself to get ideas down.

00:24:38.440 | James Altager is a big proponent of the ten ideas a day method,

00:24:41.760 | which is a game changer.

00:24:42.920 | So let's say you're like, OK,

00:24:44.000 | I'm feeling stuck about a new product to launch in my business.

00:24:46.920 | Great. Write ten ideas.

00:24:48.960 | Likely you're going to get to idea four and then really start to feel fatigued.

00:24:53.160 | Then you'll get to seven and you'll feel like you can never add to that list.

00:24:56.720 | Usually ideas eight, nine and ten are the brilliant ones

00:25:00.160 | because you have to push this.

00:25:01.320 | You have to exercise that muscle.

00:25:03.560 | So either I reach out to other people and ask for their opinion

00:25:06.280 | or I force myself through that feeling of stuck by just doing.

00:25:10.360 | And any type of motion you can put in your life,

00:25:13.200 | whether it's in your body or just in your settings or how you live

00:25:16.640 | your life will change your thought process.

00:25:18.760 | So if I can't figure out what to write or if I'm feeling stuck,

00:25:21.480 | if I go for a walk or if I change my location

00:25:24.440 | or if I change something about what's in my atmosphere,

00:25:27.120 | usually that feeling of stuck changes, too.

00:25:29.280 | How did you first decide how much to charge someone to be their bridesmaid?

00:25:34.360 | And there wasn't a market for it.

00:25:35.560 | I'm going to be so honest with you.

00:25:36.840 | I was a poetry major.

00:25:37.880 | I was working at a startup.

00:25:39.000 | I had no idea.

00:25:40.120 | Literally, when the ad went viral, I went on national TV, live TV,

00:25:44.520 | and they asked me how much this cost.

00:25:46.400 | And I said, Cos, this is a free service.

00:25:48.880 | I want to do this for free.

00:25:50.680 | And my brother, who's like in the business world, was like,

00:25:53.360 | what did you just do?

00:25:55.000 | And this is not going to be free.

00:25:57.040 | And to be honest with you, I didn't know how much to charge,

00:25:59.240 | but I found a different type of vendor in the wedding industry

00:26:02.160 | that I was closest to.

00:26:03.360 | So I looked at wedding planners and they have coordinators

00:26:05.480 | and were very different, but I looked at their pricing model.

00:26:07.960 | I saw how much they charged, how they structured their packages.

00:26:11.000 | And I modeled it off of that.

00:26:12.840 | Even then, my pricing was far too low.

00:26:15.360 | And after I worked a ton of weddings, I would come home and raise my prices

00:26:19.200 | by five dollars, ten dollars just because I was exhausted.

00:26:22.520 | So I think pricing is something that will take time to figure out.

00:26:26.520 | But you can do research, look at any other competitors that you have,

00:26:30.400 | figure out who your target audience is so you can match a price

00:26:33.120 | to your target audience and how much disposable income

00:26:35.760 | they might have to spend on your product or your service.

00:26:38.480 | And the other thing to start to figure out is your operating costs.

00:26:41.360 | A lot of my operating costs are my time spent on these phone calls

00:26:44.840 | or me getting to the wedding or my downtime when I'm not working in the wedding

00:26:48.440 | or also being out on my own.

00:26:50.240 | I have to pay health insurance and all of these things can factor into your pricing.

00:26:53.840 | But I was the one that never had any business training, any advice on what to do.

00:26:57.920 | I have learned and all of my success that I have had

00:27:01.000 | is because of all of the mistakes that I have made on my own costly mistakes.

00:27:05.840 | And if you went back in time,

00:27:08.520 | where would you start setting your price now if you could do it all over again?

00:27:11.480 | If I could go back in time, I would say to myself, Jen,

00:27:14.400 | even though you don't think you are worth this price, let me tell you,

00:27:18.520 | you don't know your worth because you are too deep in the business to know better.

00:27:22.280 | So I want you to double, if not triple what you were charging.

00:27:25.800 | I think I first started off in 2014 charging under a thousand dollars

00:27:29.640 | for this service, which is ludicrous because the amount of time

00:27:33.600 | and energy and resources that go into this.

00:27:36.440 | And now I'm closer to the three thousand dollar mark for the baseline package,

00:27:40.000 | which I think is a really good price for the service.

00:27:42.840 | So I wish I would have tripled my price and said, you know what, Jen,

00:27:45.560 | you might not feel like this is what you should charge,

00:27:48.960 | but the value you're giving is extraordinary and people will pay it.

00:27:53.240 | We're always so scared that if we raise our prices

00:27:55.720 | or we price something higher than competitors, nobody will come to us.

00:27:59.160 | But that's where branding and marketing and sales tools come into play.

00:28:03.080 | And I wish I had the confidence to do that.

00:28:06.080 | And I'll be honest with you, even now, I'm so scared to raise my prices.

00:28:09.960 | I do made of honor speech writing.

00:28:11.720 | And I had a client say at the end of working with me,

00:28:14.280 | I just want to let you know you are completely undercharging.

00:28:17.200 | You should triple your prices.

00:28:19.160 | And I said to her, wow, I appreciate that feedback.

00:28:21.400 | But inside, I'm a bit of a scaredy cat because that price points working for me.

00:28:25.440 | I'm getting business.

00:28:26.320 | If I raise it, I might lose business.

00:28:28.360 | So even till this day, it's a confidence issue more than anything else.

00:28:32.760 | So do you think you're going to raise your prices now that you've had that feedback?

00:28:36.680 | Absolutely, because not only did a client have to tell me,

00:28:39.600 | but I've had business mentors and just friends tell me that I'm charging too little.

00:28:43.320 | And I think it took the words of a client to make me think, you know what?

00:28:46.800 | I asked her, OK, how much would you pay?

00:28:49.200 | So I think that's good feedback is once you've worked with clients

00:28:52.240 | or you've had people buy your product is to send out a survey and say, hey,

00:28:55.480 | how much would you have paid for this and get their honest advice?

00:28:58.600 | And have you changed your price since?

00:29:02.080 | To be honest with you, this phone call was two days ago,

00:29:04.600 | and I haven't changed it since, but I'm working on it.

00:29:08.200 | I'm working on it.

00:29:10.080 | OK, that's a good question, though. I like it.

00:29:12.160 | I need this accountability, Chris. This is good.

00:29:14.400 | Well, why don't you just commit to change the price before the end of the weekend?

00:29:18.400 | I'm going to because I'm launching a new website for Bites Me for Hire,

00:29:21.040 | and I'm going to go do it.

00:29:21.880 | I'm not going to triple it.

00:29:22.760 | I'll be honest with you, but I will tack on a couple hundred.

00:29:24.920 | And when it comes to marketing, not everyone will launch a crazy side hustle

00:29:29.400 | and go on national television in a matter of days.

00:29:31.440 | So let's shelve that tactic.

00:29:33.760 | But you've launched a lot of other lines of business, side hustle, sources of income.

00:29:39.120 | What advice do you have for people to just get them out there?

00:29:42.000 | I think number one is you have to think about how to be different.

00:29:45.040 | There's so many people out there who are starting another podcast,

00:29:48.240 | another wedding business, another this, another that.

00:29:50.200 | Your branding, your voice, everything has to be different.

00:29:54.120 | You have to differentiate yourself from all of the noise.

00:29:57.080 | If not, the marketing is going to feel impossible.

00:30:00.320 | So think about how you can do things differently,

00:30:02.680 | how you can do things like nobody else has done them before.

00:30:05.280 | Number two, tap into any resources that are currently

00:30:09.200 | where your audience are spending a ton of time.

00:30:12.000 | There's so many people right now who are so against TikTok

00:30:14.720 | because they think it's for the young people or whatever.

00:30:17.240 | But the truth is, everyone's on TikTok.

00:30:18.960 | TikTok is the fastest growing way that you can blow up right now

00:30:22.080 | for free, not even spending a penny.

00:30:24.920 | Tap into that.

00:30:26.800 | When we're doing marketing, we all look for a downloadable plan

00:30:30.960 | off the Internet of what we can do to market ourselves.

00:30:33.480 | And that downloadable plan will tell you Instagram, Facebook ads.

00:30:37.120 | None of that is going to work because it's oversaturated

00:30:40.160 | and your growth rate will be very, very low.

00:30:42.560 | Go to the places that are new, that are fresh,

00:30:45.920 | that your audience is spending a lot of time on.

00:30:47.920 | Number two, press is great because it gets the word out there for you for free.

00:30:52.160 | So it's like advertising, but you don't have to pay for it.

00:30:54.680 | How do you do your own press?

00:30:56.280 | There's two free websites that everybody should sign up for

00:31:00.320 | because they're absolutely free and the press comes to you.

00:31:03.520 | What I mean by that is every day you'll get a list of sources

00:31:06.800 | that news reporters need to talk to.

00:31:08.960 | And if you are a source, you'll end up in these articles for free.

00:31:13.040 | One of those websites is called helpareporterout.com

00:31:16.400 | and the other is called Quoted, Q-W-O-T-E-D.

00:31:20.360 | The press is coming to you.

00:31:22.480 | So get on those two websites as a source.

00:31:25.160 | Press is great, again, because it spreads your name.

00:31:27.960 | You don't have to pay for it.

00:31:29.000 | So that's a good marketing channel.

00:31:30.400 | Social media is good as long as you're not doing social media

00:31:33.520 | like everybody else, because most people are doing it wrong.

00:31:36.160 | And the third way is to create some sort of free value content stream.

00:31:40.560 | Rather than just be a business, be a brand.

00:31:42.920 | You also have to be a content creator.

00:31:44.960 | So consider a newsletter, consider a podcast, consider a video series,

00:31:48.960 | but make it fresh, make it interesting, make it something

00:31:52.000 | where after the person reads it, watches it or listens to it,

00:31:54.840 | they walk away and go, "Whoa, I cannot stop thinking about that."

00:31:58.920 | How do you find that idea?

00:32:00.440 | Because I think it's easy to say,

00:32:02.680 | write something that people stop in their tracks when they see.

00:32:06.040 | But you're a writer.

00:32:07.320 | What tips do you have for someone who's like, "I don't know what that is"?

00:32:10.720 | You need to wear the shoes of your audience, because a lot of times

00:32:14.200 | we start businesses and brands for people who aren't us

00:32:16.840 | or who were just one of that audience.

00:32:19.200 | So you need to embed yourself with that audience.

00:32:21.360 | Number one, join Facebook groups, Slack channels, Discord groups

00:32:25.160 | where your audience hangs out and virtually stalk them.

00:32:28.240 | Read what they're talking about.

00:32:29.800 | Read how they're saying things.

00:32:31.240 | Read what problems they have.

00:32:32.760 | Get to know them from that level.

00:32:34.600 | And that will really help you feel like you start to understand

00:32:38.120 | who you're marketing to and who you're talking to.

00:32:40.520 | Next, look at all your competitors and what they're doing.

00:32:43.120 | Find the similarities in what they're doing and try to do the opposite,

00:32:46.400 | because you will be surprised how doing the opposite of what they're doing

00:32:50.400 | might give you traction and might impress your audience

00:32:52.960 | in a really unique kind of way.

00:32:55.080 | The third thing to think about is what can you put out there

00:32:59.160 | that is going to let people feel smarter, more inspired and entertained?

00:33:04.320 | All good content has that in there.

00:33:06.800 | So if you're not sure, think number one.

00:33:08.640 | Okay, what will my audience need to hear or read

00:33:11.680 | that would let them feel smarter about this topic?

00:33:14.320 | So if you're selling mattresses, okay, what would your audience

00:33:17.520 | need to know about mattresses that would make them feel that way?

00:33:20.200 | What would they need to know that would make them entertained and inspired?

00:33:23.520 | And if we can start to answer these questions, what we're putting out there

00:33:26.400 | will attract the people we want to attract.

00:33:28.720 | That's fantastic.

00:33:31.000 | So how did you end up making the decision to take this thing

00:33:35.040 | that you started on a whim on a Friday afternoon and say, "Okay, I've done this.

00:33:40.000 | I used to think I should do it for free.

00:33:41.280 | I'm getting paid. Now this is my full time business.

00:33:44.120 | This is me. I'm not going to look for a day job.

00:33:46.640 | I'm not going to look for steady W2 income.

00:33:49.240 | I'm going all in on myself."

00:33:51.320 | I was a bit of a coward, I guess, because I really didn't.

00:33:53.760 | I waited till I was laid off from my full time job.

00:33:56.440 | I'll never forget my boss calling me in and said, "We're having a massive layoff

00:34:00.520 | and I'm letting you go first because I don't think you should be here anymore."

00:34:04.600 | And I remember being devastated by that because I love the steady stream of income.

00:34:09.280 | Again, I did my job so quick.

00:34:10.960 | I did it really well.

00:34:11.920 | And I had all the free time in the world

00:34:13.440 | and I was getting paid like $70,000 to do it back then.

00:34:16.560 | So I was so devastated.

00:34:18.600 | And I remember packing my bags and exiting the door.

00:34:21.120 | And as the front door hit me in the behind, I said to myself, "Jen,

00:34:25.160 | you are never going to work for somebody else ever again, ever again."

00:34:30.920 | And to make that happen, we will figure out what we have to do to pay our bills.

00:34:35.040 | And I went home and I devised a plan that said, OK,

00:34:39.080 | we're going to take Bridesmaids for Hire to the next level.

00:34:41.240 | We'll figure out what that means.

00:34:42.840 | We're also going to tap into the other little side

00:34:45.160 | hustles that you had sort of done when you worked full time,

00:34:48.120 | like freelance writing and book writing and all of these things.

00:34:51.600 | And we're going to make it work.

00:34:52.880 | We're going to figure it out.

00:34:54.640 | But that was the moment where I said, "I can't work for somebody else

00:34:57.720 | because you know what? I'm not a good employee.

00:34:59.560 | I don't want to just do my job.

00:35:00.800 | I want to do other things.

00:35:02.280 | And I will never be happy in a corporate environment."

00:35:05.240 | And I made that decision.

00:35:06.440 | And honestly, in full honesty and transparency, it is not easy

00:35:09.920 | because every month I have a certain income goal of what I want to make.

00:35:12.800 | And sometimes you don't hit that and sometimes you do.

00:35:15.440 | And it's very inconsistent and it's hard.

00:35:17.440 | One month, you know, one side hustle or one business is taking off

00:35:20.880 | and the rest are failing.

00:35:21.840 | And during the pandemic, all of them are failing and you start to panic.

00:35:24.720 | So it's definitely a lifestyle where you are on your toes.

00:35:27.840 | And some days you find yourself thinking, "Huh, would it be easier

00:35:30.760 | just to collect a paycheck?"

00:35:32.040 | And I do think that sometimes.

00:35:33.320 | But I just know that my happiness lies in me

00:35:35.920 | being able to run wild and free with these crazy ideas.

00:35:39.400 | When you were deciding Bridesmaids for Hire, let's make this a thing.

00:35:43.280 | You mentioned you also looked at, "OK, what about writing and books?"

00:35:46.920 | Did a part of you say, "What if Bridesmaids for Hire could just be the one thing?"

00:35:51.160 | I always thought that Bridesmaids for Hire would never be the only thing

00:35:54.560 | because that wouldn't make me happy.

00:35:56.360 | I am somebody who has known from a very early age

00:35:58.800 | that there's two categories of things that I am meant to do.

00:36:01.600 | One of them is write in any capacity.

00:36:03.720 | I've known since I was four years old, I wanted to be a writer.

00:36:06.280 | And the other is speak to inspire.

00:36:08.840 | I've always wanted to be this inspirational speaker.

00:36:11.200 | So when I started Bridesmaids for Hire, I sort of turned both of those things

00:36:14.920 | into the gig.

00:36:15.720 | I wrote maid of honor speeches and I spoke and I inspired and I helped people.

00:36:19.320 | But I always knew I had to do other things with those passions.

00:36:22.680 | My other passion was always being able to support people

00:36:25.600 | when they were going through really challenging situations.

00:36:27.960 | That's always been my target audience are people who are

00:36:30.400 | not feeling great about their lives and me being that person

00:36:33.880 | that could hopefully pick them up.

00:36:35.600 | So knowing that those are my passions always led me to figure out other things.

00:36:39.000 | But no, I never thought Bridesmaids for Hire would be my only thing

00:36:41.640 | because it wouldn't make me happy.

00:36:43.760 | So two of the side hustles you spun up probably because of the passions

00:36:47.680 | you just talked about were coaching and speaking.

00:36:49.760 | And I hear a lot of people talk about, "I like advising people.

00:36:53.600 | Coaching would be fun." Some people turn that into a full time gig.

00:36:56.520 | But how did you even get started in those two areas?

00:36:59.560 | And what advice do you have for people who are interested in them?

00:37:02.480 | I remember graduating college with a poetry degree

00:37:05.320 | and people would ask me what I wanted to do next.

00:37:07.360 | And I said, "I want to be a motivational speaker."

00:37:09.440 | And so many mentors and people older than me were like, "Cool,

00:37:13.800 | but you have nothing to speak about.

00:37:15.160 | You're 22. You haven't lived a life."

00:37:18.120 | And I was offended by that because I thought I had lived a life at 22,

00:37:21.960 | but perhaps they were right.

00:37:23.560 | But as I built my career, as I got laid off, as I built Bridesmaid for Hire,

00:37:27.760 | as I wrote books, as I did all of these things,

00:37:29.960 | I felt like I had more life experiences.

00:37:32.120 | And that led to a lot of people knocking on my door and asking for help

00:37:35.760 | and asking for advice and asking how to launch this or that.

00:37:39.480 | And I decided rather than doing these one off free chats

00:37:43.320 | or rather than speaking and teaching at a school,

00:37:46.320 | why not offer coaching so it can be more personalized?

00:37:49.080 | So I think I got the confidence to offer coaching as a service

00:37:52.760 | once I started to get a steady stream of maybe 10 plus people a month

00:37:56.680 | reaching out for some sort of help.

00:37:58.880 | And I got to do more speaking just by figuring out, OK, what was my keynote?

00:38:02.680 | What was I going to bring to the table at all of these conferences?

00:38:05.720 | And a lot of what I spoke about was how to take a crazy idea

00:38:09.000 | and turn it into a side hustle or how to market using no money

00:38:12.160 | or how to do your own PR.

00:38:13.800 | I tapped into all of these skills that I figured out

00:38:16.680 | by starting Bridesmaid for Hire and running with it.

00:38:19.080 | So I guess that person at 22 was right.

00:38:21.400 | I really didn't know what to speak about or coach back then.

00:38:24.200 | But through these experiences, I built the confidence to launch that.

00:38:27.400 | And these are things I still do till this day.

00:38:30.400 | And some seasons are busier and some seasons aren't.

00:38:33.040 | And that's the cool thing about juggling multiple streams of income,

00:38:36.440 | multiple side hustles, is that some seasons you'll run with three

00:38:39.840 | out of seven of them and then the other season that will change.

00:38:42.560 | That's both stressful and exciting.

00:38:45.120 | And that summarizes, I really believe, my personal life and journey

00:38:48.680 | as an entrepreneur.

00:38:50.240 | Before I do any interview, I like to go find an episode of a podcast

00:38:53.440 | where someone's been interviewed and just kind of get a sense of their vibe.

00:38:56.400 | And I saw a bunch of you on one show and I was like, "Gosh,

00:38:59.440 | why is she going on the James Altucher show so many times?"

00:39:02.880 | And so I looked and you'd started this coaching series

00:39:05.360 | where you publicly were being coached.

00:39:07.080 | It was called Make You A Millionaire.

00:39:08.600 | I only listed the first one so far.

00:39:10.280 | The goal was in six to 12 months, you were going to go through this

00:39:13.040 | coaching series and build your business up.

00:39:16.080 | How has that gone? What have you learned?

00:39:19.040 | I've been a fan of James Altucher for so many years.

00:39:23.120 | I've loved his style.

00:39:24.840 | I saw somewhere that he had posted he was taking on these mentorees

00:39:28.640 | for his podcast, and I wrote an email.

00:39:30.600 | I reached out and never thought I'd hear back from him.

00:39:32.720 | I got an email within a couple of minutes being accepted to the show.

00:39:35.760 | We filmed the next day.

00:39:37.800 | I opened up my entire life on that episode.

00:39:40.040 | And I remember thinking, "What did I just do?"

00:39:42.960 | I was so nervous because I figured a huge audience of people would hear it.

00:39:47.720 | I was so vulnerable in a way I had never been before.

00:39:50.320 | And frankly, I was quite terrified.

00:39:52.440 | Not only that, but if you know James, you know that he has a lot of ideas,

00:39:56.320 | big ideas, scary ideas, things I've never done before.

00:39:59.160 | And I wanted to do everything that he said

00:40:02.000 | because I really did view him as that mentor.

00:40:04.240 | So he threw me into a world where I was already doing so much.

00:40:08.320 | And now he gave me five other things to start to do.

00:40:11.280 | He had me start two newsletters, a product, all of these things.

00:40:15.520 | And it was a complete game changer.

00:40:18.440 | Did I make a million dollars from any of it?

00:40:20.960 | No. Am I close to that? No.

00:40:23.280 | But what it did help me figure out is other places and other things

00:40:28.400 | to tap into that I normally never, ever would have thought to do

00:40:31.880 | or would have thought about.

00:40:34.080 | I'm somebody who for the past seven years, I've been my own boss.

00:40:37.240 | I'm a team of one.

00:40:38.640 | I am the brainpower of everything I do.

00:40:41.120 | And sometimes that's not enough or that's stale.

00:40:44.200 | But listening to somebody say, hey, do this, do this, do this, do this

00:40:47.560 | got me out of a funk and forced me into all of these different worlds

00:40:51.000 | that taught me something new.

00:40:52.360 | I learned how to use Substack.

00:40:53.840 | I launched a product on Kickstarter.

00:40:55.880 | I created a card game, something I'd wanted to do, but had no idea what to do.

00:40:59.800 | I created a website where people can be human billboards.

00:41:02.720 | I just did everything.

00:41:04.360 | And I felt like I had no risk because I almost felt like

00:41:07.320 | I was doing these things to show him.

00:41:09.720 | And it was almost like a fun experiment.

00:41:11.520 | So I felt risk free.

00:41:13.120 | Whereas in my own life, taking those risks is harder

00:41:15.960 | because I'm always so worried about making money.

00:41:17.840 | So I start to sort of put those risks aside and focus on things

00:41:21.800 | that are going to make me money.

00:41:23.040 | But working with him on this podcast and this experiment

00:41:25.840 | forced me to try new things that I hadn't done in a while.

00:41:28.840 | I want to ask about a few of them, because Kickstarter is a great example.

00:41:33.320 | Everyone listening has probably found some interesting project there.

00:41:36.320 | What would you say about that experience?

00:41:38.240 | If someone has an interesting idea of something to build?

00:41:40.680 | Was that a good, positive experience?

00:41:43.040 | I really liked the Kickstarter platform in the sense of it

00:41:46.160 | gives you a great landing page.

00:41:47.680 | You can film a video about your product.

00:41:49.520 | You could offer different tiers.

00:41:51.040 | And it's a great place to send people to to hopefully invest in your product.

00:41:55.160 | And if you reach the goal, you have the product will get made

00:41:58.160 | and they'll get the product they bought.

00:42:00.040 | And if you don't, they get their money back.

00:42:01.560 | So it's a little bit risk free for your audience.

00:42:03.840 | However, what I am learning about everything in life is just because

00:42:08.160 | you're on a website like Kickstarter or you're on another type of website

00:42:11.120 | like that, it doesn't mean you're going to get organic traffic.

00:42:13.920 | So you still have to market no matter what you start in this world,

00:42:18.000 | whether you release a podcast, a book, a product, a business.

00:42:20.640 | Having marketing skills is so essential.

00:42:23.880 | So the Kickstarter was great for a lot of those resources.

00:42:26.880 | But I still had to do a ton of hands on marketing.

00:42:30.120 | I still had to think about how am I going to make this go viral?

00:42:32.600 | I still had to figure out how to post this on Instagram or talk about it

00:42:35.720 | on the podcast or get people to share it in order to get people to that page.

00:42:39.880 | That was all me and not so much Kickstarter.

00:42:41.920 | And I think a lot of people think

00:42:43.400 | if you have a Kickstarter page, that Kickstarter will send you traffic.

00:42:46.800 | And that could be true,

00:42:47.920 | especially if you have a very viral idea or a really awesome video.

00:42:51.040 | That could happen.

00:42:52.200 | But for me, it required a lot of marketing.

00:42:54.680 | I liked it because it gave me the confidence to produce a product

00:42:58.240 | that I was very, very scared to release.

00:43:00.520 | It also gave me the funds to go off and release it

00:43:03.160 | without having to tap into my own money.

00:43:05.280 | So there were a lot of benefits to releasing something on Kickstarter.

00:43:08.440 | Also, all I needed was a proof of concept.

00:43:10.720 | As I got the Kickstarter up and running, that's when I designed the card deck.

00:43:14.640 | That's when I wrote the cards.

00:43:15.920 | That's when I figured out how to produce it.

00:43:17.520 | So it gave me some lead time to actually put it out there in the world.

00:43:20.680 | And it's out there.

00:43:21.320 | You hit your goal. People can buy the cards.

00:43:23.480 | I doubled the goal.

00:43:25.000 | I funded it 200%, which was cool.

00:43:28.320 | And I've released the card game.

00:43:29.800 | I'm practically sold out with the first release of it.

00:43:32.640 | I'm reordering it right now.

00:43:34.560 | It's been an amazing, amazing thing to do

00:43:36.640 | because I've always wanted to create a physical product.

00:43:39.760 | My entire career has been services or books or nothing like a product of my own.

00:43:45.160 | And creating this card deck was the first one that I've done.

00:43:47.880 | And it's a cool learning experience.

00:43:49.480 | I'm learning how to sell on Amazon.

00:43:50.880 | I'm learning how to talk to retailers and get it there.

00:43:54.120 | I'm learning about e-commerce.

00:43:55.520 | Like I'm learning about all of these things that I've always wanted to learn,

00:43:58.440 | but I didn't have an excuse to.

00:43:59.840 | And that was the cool part about working with James

00:44:01.600 | is he gave me an excuse to learn different softwares and platforms

00:44:05.600 | and put out different ideas out there that I think I would have been too scared to do.

00:44:08.880 | If you're a person who wants to start a side hustle

00:44:11.280 | or you want to go out on your own and be an entrepreneur,

00:44:14.040 | people always talk about the importance of having mentors and people to turn to.

00:44:17.920 | And I never really had any of that.

00:44:20.200 | But you get to points in your career where it's so essential

00:44:23.840 | because your brain can only take you so far

00:44:26.880 | and feeding off of the ideas of people you trust,

00:44:29.560 | whether they're in your industry or not,

00:44:31.640 | can really help you get out of a certain place where your brain is locked.

00:44:35.840 | I've been fortunate to have mentors throughout my career.

00:44:39.480 | But oftentimes, they're not necessarily people that you might think are mentors.

00:44:43.560 | Like one of my closest friends is a mentor for a certain area of my life.

00:44:47.720 | And I would say don't always write off who could be a mentor

00:44:51.320 | because sometimes what you need is just someone with a different perspective.

00:44:54.120 | And that doesn't need to always be someone who's done it a thousand times.

00:44:57.600 | It could just be someone whose opinion you respect.

00:45:00.080 | And oftentimes, I personally think the most valuable trait of a mentor

00:45:05.480 | is that you respect their opinion.

00:45:06.960 | Because if you don't respect their opinion,

00:45:08.760 | a lot of their feedback isn't going to be taken to heart.

00:45:11.200 | And if you're not going to take the feedback,

00:45:13.200 | then the relationship doesn't always work.

00:45:15.600 | I like how you said you have a mentor for a certain part of your life.

00:45:18.760 | And I find that to be true.

00:45:19.960 | My true first ever mentor, and I write about this in my book,

00:45:22.840 | was an 86-year-old man that I met on the internet

00:45:26.040 | because I googled "free business help".

00:45:27.920 | And I found this guy, met him at a library.

00:45:30.440 | He didn't even know what a bridesmaid was.

00:45:32.800 | And I went back to him every single Saturday for two years.

00:45:36.600 | I realized I wasn't going to him for business advice

00:45:39.240 | because frankly, he wasn't giving me that.

00:45:41.680 | But he was mentoring me on how to be tough.

00:45:43.960 | And he was mentoring me on how to have mental strength and resilience

00:45:47.000 | and how to stand up for myself

00:45:48.280 | and how to have really tough conversations in the business world.

00:45:51.280 | And I was going to him for different reasons.

00:45:53.880 | I thought I was going to him for how to scale a business

00:45:56.200 | and write a business plan.

00:45:57.320 | But truthfully, what I got out of him

00:45:59.360 | was something I never knew I needed,

00:46:01.120 | but during that time, got me through that.

00:46:03.480 | And I think it's the same thing with James.

00:46:05.280 | I started the podcast with him because I needed business advice,

00:46:07.840 | but really what he taught me is how to have fun,

00:46:09.960 | how to have experiments, how to think outside of the box.

00:46:13.040 | Things I was greatly missing in my life.

00:46:14.760 | So you're right, don't write off people.

00:46:17.000 | And sometimes find a mentor who knows nothing about your industry,

00:46:20.600 | nothing about what you're doing,

00:46:21.920 | because you might take so much from them

00:46:25.000 | that somebody who's a seasoned vet in what you're doing

00:46:27.720 | might pass over and not even know to tell you.

00:46:30.120 | So what were the lessons from this man about grit and resilience

00:46:33.600 | that made that possible?

00:46:35.080 | I found that early on when I started Bridesmaid for Hire,

00:46:38.280 | I was in all of these different negotiations and business contract meetings.

00:46:42.440 | And I was trying to pitch a TV show.

00:46:44.120 | And I was so scared to stand up for what I wanted.

00:46:46.960 | And I remember we would do a lot of role playing.

00:46:49.840 | And one time he got out his keys and he said to me,

00:46:53.960 | if you're ever in a negotiation

00:46:55.800 | and they don't like what you're bringing to the table or they say no to you,

00:46:59.320 | you just drop your keys and you say to them, that's my final offer.

00:47:02.520 | If you decline it, I'm picking up these keys and I'm never speaking to you again.

00:47:05.840 | This was a really tough guy and maybe some of his advice wasn't perfect,

00:47:09.760 | but it really toughened me up.

00:47:11.360 | And it showed me that I need to figure out

00:47:14.280 | how to push my scaredness away and my fear away

00:47:17.840 | and step up to these conversations like I've been there before.

00:47:21.120 | And I know how much value I'm bringing.

00:47:24.080 | I'm somebody who you might not realize this from hearing me on podcasts,

00:47:27.560 | but I'm really shy, like in real life.

00:47:29.800 | I'm really, really shy.

00:47:31.560 | So when I found myself in a lot of these business conversations,

00:47:34.240 | I had imposter syndrome.

00:47:35.600 | I was just shy.

00:47:36.680 | I didn't think I was good enough.

00:47:38.040 | And this guy, I think, really toughened me up.

00:47:41.040 | And through role playing, he would fix my language.

00:47:43.760 | He would fix my body language.

00:47:45.280 | And he would really just teach me how to bring myself there in a room.

00:47:49.560 | Sometimes the people who scared me like crazy.

00:47:52.320 | And it's really made me, I swear to you, till this day,

00:47:54.960 | I could walk in a room of anybody, the most famous person in the world.

00:47:58.640 | And I won't let it faze me.

00:47:59.800 | You would never know that I'm scared.

00:48:01.840 | He's taught me how to not be intimidated, which is something

00:48:04.400 | that was really hard for me to learn as a person who's just naturally really shy.

00:48:07.960 | Everybody intimidates me always.

00:48:10.160 | So what would you do if you were walking in to a room to meet the president?

00:48:14.080 | Is there something you would do in advance to prepare?

00:48:16.440 | I always do my body language warm up.

00:48:18.320 | So I always make sure that I drink a lot of water.

00:48:20.880 | But I always tell myself, OK, keep your shoulders back

00:48:23.160 | because the more your shoulders are back, the more you open your chest up,

00:48:26.040 | the more you can breathe and the more you show confidence.

00:48:28.320 | I always remember to keep my hands controlled because that shows

00:48:31.760 | that you are controlled.

00:48:32.920 | So I'll keep my hands either at my belly button or by my waist.

00:48:36.240 | And I'll sometimes I'll hold my hands together.

00:48:38.600 | And then the final thing is because you can learn

00:48:40.400 | about how anybody feels about you based on where their chin is.

00:48:43.680 | If someone's chin is down, they're completely terrified by you.

00:48:46.400 | They're intimidated by you.

00:48:47.760 | If their chin is up, you find this air of confidence.

00:48:50.880 | So I'll walk in the room, shoulders back, my chin up, my hands controlled.

00:48:54.400 | I won't be shaking my body side to side.

00:48:56.480 | I'll be relatively still.

00:48:58.000 | I'll look the person in the eye and I won't show any kind of extreme emotion.

00:49:03.200 | I'm somebody in real life where I'm very enthusiastic.

00:49:06.600 | But when I meet somebody who I'm intimidated by, I'll tone that down

00:49:10.000 | and I won't show that enthusiasm.

00:49:12.040 | And why that is is because I want them to know that I came there

00:49:15.480 | with a serious reason or I came there for a serious type of conversation.

00:49:19.680 | So I'll really play into that, too.

00:49:22.440 | I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show.

00:49:25.840 | Your support is what keeps this show going to get all of the URLs, codes,

00:49:31.200 | deals and discounts from our partners.

00:49:33.400 | You can go to all the hacks dot com slash deals.

00:49:36.640 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:49:40.040 | I'm going to take a little bit of a turn.

00:49:42.000 | I saw on Instagram you applied to be a host on QVC,

00:49:45.480 | which is wildly different than everything else you've done,

00:49:49.120 | other than maybe selling your card game online.

00:49:51.320 | What's the story behind that?

00:49:53.240 | My whole life, people have told me I should be a QVC host.

00:49:56.720 | And I know this goes against everything I just said about being shy,

00:49:59.720 | but I'm also really good when the camera turns on.

00:50:01.920 | So I've done a lot of TV thanks to Bridesmaid for Hire.

00:50:04.520 | And when that camera goes on, I'm a different person.

00:50:06.760 | My mom will say to you, she doesn't recognize me because I completely light up.

00:50:10.760 | I love TV. I love that spotlight. I love it.

00:50:14.280 | So my whole life, people have told me that I would do really well on QVC

00:50:18.080 | because if I genuinely like something,

00:50:21.320 | I am so passionate about it and convincing.

00:50:24.280 | If I genuinely liked this water that I'm drinking,

00:50:28.040 | I would bring such passion to it that you would say, you know what, Jen?

00:50:31.080 | I'm going to give it a try because you really do seem to adore it.

00:50:34.280 | I've always been that way. I'm so passionate.

00:50:36.640 | So my whole life, people have mentioned QVC, mentioned that I should be a host.

00:50:40.840 | And I was on Instagram one day and I saw this casting director post about it.

00:50:44.720 | And I was like, you know what?

00:50:46.080 | What will it take for me to try out?

00:50:48.360 | Literally five minutes, record a five minute video.

00:50:51.160 | So I did my hair. I put on some makeup.

00:50:52.960 | I recorded a five minute video on my camera, on my phone camera.

00:50:56.840 | And I sent it to them and they liked it.

00:50:59.400 | I moved to the next round.

00:51:00.640 | I ended up doing like a zoom live interview with them.

00:51:03.640 | And that was all it took to try out for QVC.

00:51:07.440 | Now, ultimately, spoiler alert, I did not get hired,

00:51:11.320 | but it was something that I always wanted to try.

00:51:14.280 | And it took me nothing, five minutes of my life to initially try out.

00:51:18.720 | Rather than sitting there and thinking about, should I, should I, should I?

00:51:22.280 | If I get it, my whole life would have to change.

00:51:24.440 | I have to move to Pennsylvania.

00:51:26.120 | I have to do all these things.

00:51:27.680 | I'm the kind of person who has always treated life, business, relationships,

00:51:31.360 | anything like this. Don't overthink it.

00:51:33.440 | Just try. Just start.

00:51:35.120 | And then after you start, after you have a little bit of skin in the game,

00:51:38.400 | then figure out what the heck is going on.

00:51:40.360 | With Bridesmaid for Hire, I didn't have a business plan.

00:51:42.560 | I didn't have anything.

00:51:43.720 | I put the ad out there.

00:51:44.840 | I figured it out.

00:51:45.920 | And that's how I am with every single thing I do.

00:51:48.920 | I do not overthink it.

00:51:50.280 | I just put it out there and then I figure it out.

00:51:53.280 | What would you tell someone if you were coaching them who's like,

00:51:57.280 | I'm not good at that, I'm sitting here overthinking everything?

00:52:00.640 | Is there a trick?

00:52:01.680 | One thing tomorrow, what's one decision, what's one thing you have to do tomorrow

00:52:05.120 | and give yourself five seconds to make a decision and go.

00:52:07.640 | If you're somebody who is overthinking what color shirt to wear,

00:52:10.440 | count one, two, three, four, five, grab something and wear it.

00:52:13.040 | And then you deal with the consequences of that for the day.

00:52:16.160 | And if you start to become a person like that, you'll start to realize, OK,

00:52:19.440 | I'm not going to overthink decisions.

00:52:20.880 | I'm going to make one and then deal with the consequences.

00:52:23.680 | I do this with everything in life.

00:52:25.560 | And let me tell you, 90% of the things are not successful.

00:52:28.360 | You haven't heard about them because they haven't taken off. Right.

00:52:30.920 | But there's occasional thing here and there that ends up working out for you.

00:52:34.200 | And I think that's how it has to be, how I met my husband.

00:52:37.160 | I like sharing this story because, again, it was a weird experiment.

00:52:40.320 | It wasn't something I overthought.

00:52:41.960 | I was horrible at dating. I was so awkward. I'm so shy.

00:52:44.800 | I said, you know what, for the whole month of February,

00:52:47.080 | you're going to go on 14 dates that month.

00:52:49.000 | I would go on four dates a day.

00:52:50.560 | I didn't overthink it.

00:52:51.680 | Anybody who asked me out, I said, sure, we'll meet. What's the big deal?

00:52:55.280 | I didn't overthink it. I became so good at dating.

00:52:58.480 | I met nobody I wanted to ever see again.

00:53:00.960 | I go to delete the dating app and he was my final message.

00:53:04.000 | He was date 15.

00:53:05.360 | Now I could have overthought that experiment or I could have just said,

00:53:08.320 | you know what, I'm going to go on these 14 dates and we'll see what happens.

00:53:11.880 | So I've tried to really be this kind of person with everything in life.

00:53:15.040 | And if you're not that kind of person, that's okay.

00:53:16.840 | You're not going to wake up tomorrow and do something drastic,

00:53:18.960 | but try it with a tiny, tiny, tiny, small decision

00:53:22.400 | and then see how you feel after.

00:53:24.800 | I like that.

00:53:25.600 | Before we wrap, I want to come back to the topic of weddings

00:53:28.720 | because we're almost on the other side of this pandemic, right?

00:53:32.040 | People have canceled weddings.

00:53:34.320 | What advice do you have for anyone planning a wedding coming up or maybe

00:53:38.240 | better said, what do you think having gone to so many makes a great wedding?

00:53:42.120 | There's three things that people care about at your wedding,

00:53:44.880 | and they don't care about anything but the three things.

00:53:47.120 | Number one is the music.

00:53:49.080 | It doesn't matter if you have a DJ or live music,

00:53:51.560 | but you want to have music that gets people up and dancing.

00:53:55.240 | You really want to make sure that the music is good

00:53:57.520 | because that makes people have a good time and they'll never, ever forget that.

00:54:01.400 | You could always remember the weddings

00:54:03.440 | where you found yourself smiling and laughing and just having a good time.

00:54:06.520 | And usually music helps make that happen.

00:54:08.800 | Number two, people love food.

00:54:11.280 | So good food will make your wedding phenomenal.

00:54:14.400 | And here's the thing.

00:54:15.280 | You don't have to go with a traditional wedding caterer.

00:54:17.280 | You don't have to have steak and fish and chicken.

00:54:19.520 | You can have whatever kind of foods you want.

00:54:21.600 | Make it unique. Make it about you.

00:54:23.640 | Go to local restaurants, have food trucks, have food there

00:54:27.080 | that you genuinely would be excited to eat, because usually that wedding

00:54:30.800 | food goes in the trash. You don't even want to eat it.

00:54:33.600 | And number three is some sort of open bar or alcohol.

00:54:36.800 | People love their drinks and having that just makes them happy.

00:54:39.640 | I don't personally care about number three at weddings.

00:54:41.920 | So I'll give you one more thing that really matters is the weather.

00:54:45.080 | The weather can really affect your wedding.

00:54:47.040 | So if you're having some sort of outdoor experience or wedding,

00:54:49.760 | make sure you always have an indoor rain backup plan

00:54:52.440 | because your guests don't want to feel uncomfortable in any sort of way.

00:54:55.920 | My number one tip for people getting married, and I beg you to listen to me

00:55:00.760 | on this, is please do not go into debt with your wedding.

00:55:03.760 | Yes, it's a big celebration and it's super important,

00:55:06.520 | but it is never worth going into debt.

00:55:08.720 | If you don't have the cash to pay for your wedding, try to plan a wedding

00:55:11.800 | where it fits the cash that you have.

00:55:13.720 | Try not to go into credit card debt or any type of debt for your wedding.

00:55:17.000 | The best way to do that is to set a budget before you start planning.

00:55:20.960 | Come up with an overall number for how much you can spend.

00:55:23.760 | It doesn't matter if it's five thousand fifteen or one hundred thousand.

00:55:27.160 | Pick the number first and then break down how much you can spend

00:55:30.680 | per vendor.

00:55:31.720 | The best way to figure that out is to pick the top three things

00:55:34.920 | you care about for your wedding and then spend the most money there

00:55:38.120 | and everything else you'll find budgeted ways to pay for.

00:55:41.280 | But please, your wedding is special.

00:55:43.320 | It's important. It is great.

00:55:44.920 | But you will never meet a couple who says, Yeah, I'm glad I went into a ton of debt

00:55:48.640 | and started the marriage off in debt because of the wedding.

00:55:51.440 | Most people, after they get married, say it was great.

00:55:54.880 | But if I could do it again, I wouldn't spend that much.

00:55:58.120 | I'm going to push back on all three music.

00:56:00.800 | Do you have no, no, no, not not push back.

00:56:03.480 | But sorry, let me say that again.

00:56:05.240 | I'm going to drill down on all three and try to get more out of you.

00:56:08.560 | Music. Do you publish your playlist?

00:56:10.560 | I'm sure you've had to be the one that picks the playlist.

00:56:12.560 | Is there a Spotify playlist of what you think makes for a good vibe that you share?

00:56:17.080 | It's hard because no one ever wants to listen to my music,

00:56:20.000 | but I would play Kesha and Chainsmokers and I would play hits

00:56:23.400 | that if you were in like a Vegas nightclub, you would play right.

00:56:26.440 | Because you want people to have fun and get up and dance.

00:56:28.880 | What I think doesn't work well at weddings are the standard playlist.

00:56:32.800 | Don't play Bruno Mars.

00:56:34.880 | Don't play Ed Sheeran.

00:56:36.640 | Don't play these songs that you hear again and again and again.

00:56:39.560 | Because people are so bored.

00:56:41.320 | We just went to a wedding this weekend and the music was so slow

00:56:46.000 | that people were on the dance floor and they were like,

00:56:48.200 | wait, what do we do with our bodies to this music?

00:56:50.520 | So I know that you want to have like your favorite songs and stuff,

00:56:53.120 | but also have things that like put people in good moods.

00:56:56.040 | And I can tell you all day what to play.

00:56:58.440 | But of course, pick songs that you also like and you enjoy because it is your wedding.

00:57:02.320 | But you want to have some good hits as well.

00:57:04.880 | What about finding something that works with the old people in the room as well?

00:57:10.000 | I think, yeah, you want to throw in some songs that they would like.

00:57:13.840 | But truthfully, they are the kind of people who are so happy to be at your wedding

00:57:17.360 | that they're going to dance to Kesha or the Chainsmokers.

00:57:19.520 | Even if they don't know the song, they're going to have a good time.

00:57:21.840 | I think we're always like, oh, I got to play some hits

00:57:24.040 | that like my great aunt's going to like, but truthfully, your great aunt

00:57:26.800 | is going to like anything you play and is going to be so happy to dance.

00:57:30.120 | We spend so much time and money

00:57:32.960 | accommodating everyone that's coming to our wedding.

00:57:35.280 | But the truth is, we cannot make everybody happy.

00:57:37.360 | So in general, try to think about how you can make everyone happy as a whole.

00:57:41.040 | OK, on food, what are some of the most memorable food options you've had?

00:57:47.040 | I'll share mine because it was my own wedding, but we decided

00:57:50.040 | we didn't want seated, plated meals.

00:57:52.240 | So we just picked three countries we'd been to where we love the food.

00:57:55.600 | And then we just served in little paper baskets.

00:57:58.800 | One was sliders and sweet potato fries.

00:58:02.040 | One was Thai curry.

00:58:03.520 | And then we had some sushi rolls.

00:58:05.240 | We did chocolate chip cookies for dessert because we didn't really care about cake.

00:58:08.640 | So we tried to do small plates that represent countries we'd been to.

00:58:11.880 | But I'm curious what stood out in a memorable food way.

00:58:15.880 | And that's epic because you know what?

00:58:17.720 | People are never going to forget that.

00:58:19.240 | And it meant something to you.

00:58:20.520 | It was good food.

00:58:22.200 | Obviously, and we talked about this before.

00:58:24.520 | I love pizza.

00:58:26.040 | And I just went to a wedding that was all pizza.

00:58:28.800 | And not only that, but at the end of the wedding, all of the leftover

00:58:32.480 | pizza that nobody ate, they had on a table with to go boxes

00:58:35.960 | that you can take home with you.

00:58:37.640 | I was like, this is the best wedding ever.

00:58:40.080 | But if you don't like pizza, that's OK.

00:58:42.120 | But you know exactly what you did, Chris.

00:58:43.640 | Normal food that people would be excited to eat any other time.

00:58:46.760 | I think we're also forced to think that we need to have this traditional

00:58:50.240 | wedding with all this fancy food.

00:58:51.960 | But the truth is, most of your guests just want the Thai food

00:58:54.760 | or the hamburger sliders or they want slices of pizza

00:58:57.760 | or they want macaroni and cheese.

00:58:59.600 | And especially if it's because it means something to you, they'll be happy as well.

00:59:03.520 | I love a wedding where the food is different, but also the food

00:59:07.720 | is something that means something to the couple.

00:59:09.600 | And I especially love a wedding where they go heavy on the desserts

00:59:13.480 | because I'm a big dessert person personally.

00:59:15.920 | So I love a good dessert at a wedding that's not wedding cake.

00:59:18.920 | And then the last this is something we struggled with.

00:59:21.360 | So for drinks, do you think open bar?

00:59:24.720 | Do you think just pick two cocktails?

00:59:26.720 | What do you think works best?

00:59:28.280 | It's funny because I'm not a drinker at all.

00:59:30.120 | I am like a water seltzer root beer float drinker.

00:59:32.760 | But I know a lot of people at weddings will say this, that if possible,

00:59:37.960 | and if this works for your budget and your finances, a type of open bar

00:59:41.440 | is usually best.

00:59:42.440 | And even if that means, by the way, it's open bar for an hour, that's OK.

00:59:45.560 | But if that is something you can afford, that might be something to lean into

00:59:49.200 | because a lot of people do enjoy drinking.

00:59:51.480 | But you're absolutely right.

00:59:52.840 | It doesn't need to be this extravagant open bar.

00:59:55.280 | You can do just a couple of beers or wines or you can do liquor.

00:59:59.240 | That's not top shelf.

01:00:00.440 | You can do a signature cocktail and then have like just beer and wine.

01:00:03.440 | So you don't have to have an extensive open bar.

01:00:06.800 | But I do think offering alcohol for your guests is something

01:00:10.760 | that they do appreciate if they have to pay for it, they will.

01:00:13.880 | But if that's something you can budget for, I think that's a good gift

01:00:17.080 | that a lot of your guests appreciate, which is hard for me to say

01:00:19.560 | because I'm not a drinker, but I know a lot of people do care about that.

01:00:22.800 | And from the perspective of the couple, since you have the inside ear

01:00:27.520 | to the bride, usually what is something that someone going to a wedding

01:00:31.320 | can do to be a memorable guest in a non embarrassing way?

01:00:35.720 | I think going along for the party and being enthusiastic

01:00:40.760 | during the ceremony, not having your phone out, recording everything,

01:00:44.080 | and instead just making eye contact with the couple or with the officiant.

01:00:47.760 | And when they walk down the aisle, smiling at them and just being supportive

01:00:51.240 | with your body language.

01:00:52.600 | And during the wedding, most couples who have a dance floor,

01:00:55.200 | they really want their guests to be on it.

01:00:57.360 | So even if you're not a big dancer or you're a little bit shy,

01:01:00.080 | just crowding around the dance floor, at least having your conversations

01:01:02.960 | on the dance floor.

01:01:03.760 | A lot of people are so stressed about is this going to be fun?

01:01:06.640 | Are people going to dance?

01:01:07.640 | So if you can get near the dance floor, you make a lot of people happy.

01:01:11.080 | Try to also if you can be like a superstar guest,

01:01:14.680 | try to be that guest that sits down at their table

01:01:17.160 | and makes genuine connections with everybody there.

01:01:19.840 | Tables at weddings are really awkward.

01:01:21.920 | You're sitting with people you don't know.

01:01:23.640 | And if you can be that person that bridges that gap, that relationship,

01:01:26.680 | you make the couple happy because then they feel like everyone at their wedding

01:01:29.920 | had a good time, met new people, and it wasn't awkward.

01:01:33.160 | I can't remember the exact person, but I remember after our wedding,

01:01:36.600 | there was one person that all of like my aunts and uncles and grandparents

01:01:40.680 | were like, "Oh, they were such a great person."

01:01:42.840 | It's like, you know, that guest.

01:01:44.160 | So maybe I'm both saying it was memorable and not because I can't remember

01:01:47.560 | who it was. Yeah. But be that guest. Be that person. Be that guest.

01:01:51.200 | I know you help people write a lot of speeches.

01:01:53.560 | So obviously, if you're stuck, you have a service for it.

01:01:56.120 | But what advice do you have to someone delivering a speech at a wedding

01:01:59.880 | to nail it?

01:02:01.960 | Number one, practice public speaking beforehand.

01:02:05.440 | But really what I mean by that is break down your speech in such a way

01:02:09.280 | where every three sentences you are forcing a two second pause.

01:02:12.800 | So the three, two rule, every three seconds, pause for two seconds.

01:02:16.400 | That will slow you down.

01:02:17.800 | That will allow your audience to hear what you're saying,

01:02:20.280 | and that will let your jokes land and make them funny.

01:02:23.040 | Oftentimes, when people are nervous as speakers, they go too fast

01:02:26.280 | and nobody can hear what they have to say.

01:02:28.360 | The best length for a speech is about the three to four minute mark.

01:02:31.680 | You don't need to go over that.

01:02:32.960 | If you want to share more, write it down and hand it to the couple to read later.

01:02:36.560 | But they will really respect a three to four minute speech.

01:02:39.640 | And when you're writing the speech, remember, you're not writing it

01:02:43.040 | for the couple.

01:02:43.800 | This is something that I think people don't realize.

01:02:45.800 | You're actually writing the speech for the entire wedding.

01:02:48.800 | So what you're really trying to do is prove the relationship

01:02:52.080 | you have with that person who you're good friends with

01:02:54.520 | and the person they're marrying to the entire audience.

01:02:57.200 | So skip out on inside jokes or these long, detailed stories

01:03:01.120 | that will take an audience forever to understand and write the speech

01:03:04.760 | for the audience who is learning about the relationships that you have.

01:03:08.280 | That's what makes for such a good speech.

01:03:10.800 | Anything else I miss advice for anyone going to or planning a wedding?

01:03:14.480 | If you're a bridesmaid or a groomsman in a wedding,

01:03:17.400 | the only thing I'll tell you is please, please, please understand

01:03:20.520 | that you're allowed to say no.

01:03:22.440 | We often think that if we take on that role, we have to say yes to everything.

01:03:25.920 | But if there's something you can't afford, you don't want to do

01:03:28.440 | or you don't have time for it, make sure you say no.

01:03:31.520 | How do you say no?

01:03:32.880 | You simply say, hey, thanks so much for asking me to do that.

01:03:35.520 | But at this time, that's just not something that I can swing.

01:03:37.920 | Happy to help in other ways.

01:03:39.640 | Keep it easy. Keep it friendly.

01:03:41.640 | But make sure you stand up for yourself and say no.

01:03:43.760 | I like it.

01:03:44.640 | Last area I like to ask everyone is to pick a city often where they live,

01:03:49.640 | but sometimes your favorite city to visit and tell anyone coming to that city

01:03:54.200 | where they should have a meal, grab a drink and something unusual to do.

01:03:58.320 | I would love for you to come visit us in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

01:04:02.360 | It's a small little neighborhood in Brooklyn right outside of Manhattan.

01:04:05.400 | When you get here, you're going to get off the subway on Bedford Avenue.

01:04:08.680 | You're going to walk to Joe's Pizza.

01:04:10.960 | It's a famous pizza place all over New York.

01:04:12.960 | You're going to get a slice of cheese pizza and you're going to get it

01:04:16.640 | on a paper plate and you are going to walk with that pizza to the East River.

01:04:20.760 | Once you get to the park down there, you're going to be able to see

01:04:23.360 | the Manhattan skyline.

01:04:24.560 | There's lots of places

01:04:25.400 | you can sit and drink and eat right there and have a really, really good time.

01:04:29.720 | One of the cool parts about this neighborhood is all of the fun vintage

01:04:32.600 | shops, but you can shop all day bookstores you can go to.

01:04:36.040 | And there's tons of music venues.

01:04:38.400 | There's lots of cities in the world with great music,

01:04:40.520 | but there is something so cool about the music in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

01:04:44.120 | I'm proud to live here.

01:04:46.080 | Awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

01:04:48.440 | This has been great.

01:04:49.400 | Where can people find everything you're doing online?

01:04:52.800 | Because there is a lot.

01:04:54.240 | You can check out my website, Jen Glantz dot com.

01:04:56.400 | You can follow me on Instagram at Jen Glantz, where I share personal stories,

01:05:00.320 | secrets of behind the scenes of my life, or because you're listening

01:05:03.760 | to a podcast right now, you can search for you're not getting any younger.

01:05:07.040 | It's my podcast where I share how you can disrupt your life,

01:05:09.720 | whether it's health, business relationships.

01:05:11.760 | And you can check out Chris because I just interviewed him.

01:05:15.160 | The episode is live.

01:05:16.440 | Chris shares stories he has never shared before,

01:05:19.000 | and he gives you his favorite top three hacks on the show.

01:05:22.520 | So check it out.

01:05:23.440 | Totally. That episode is great.

01:05:24.960 | Thank you so much for being here.

01:05:26.680 | Thanks for having me.

01:05:27.720 | I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

01:05:31.360 | Thank you so much for listening.

01:05:33.160 | If you haven't already left a rating and a review for the show

01:05:36.000 | in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I would really appreciate it.

01:05:39.440 | And if you have any feedback on the show, questions for me or just want to say

01:05:43.040 | hi, I'm Chris at all the hacks dot com or at Hutchins on Twitter.

01:05:47.560 | That's it for this week. I'll see you next week.

01:05:49.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:50.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:51.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:52.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:53.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:54.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:55.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:56.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:57.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:58.800 | And I'm Chris.

01:05:59.800 | [BLANK_AUDIO]