I always say I went to the "School of Alan Berg"....

Today's guest is none other than Alan Berg! He’s the author of seven books, and in our last episode in 2021, we talked extensively about his wisdom in the business of weddings. Some of his popular books include "Shut Up and Sell More Weddings and Events," "Why Are They Ghosting Me?" and his latest, "Stop Selling and Help Them Buy Weddings and Events."

Alan speaks to thousands of entrepreneurs like myself and business professionals every year through webinars, live presentations, and onsite sales training. We're going to dive deep into actionable steps from his books and podcasts that have resonated with many of us in the wedding industry. Alan is all about small, incremental steps that lead to big results.

Now, what’s one thing that every wedding professional needs after a long, successful weekend of weddings? A glass of bourbon, of course! If you’re a bourbon aficionado, you’re going to love this episode too. Alan has a detailed process of experimenting with different types of woods and aging his bourbons, creating various blends that are just so cool. It's something Alan and I share a passion for, so you’ll enjoy the bonus dialogue at the beginning of the episode.

With more than 25 years in sales, marketing, and sales management, Alan Berg is uniquely qualified to help wedding and event businesses succeed. He was included in the "Top 100 Speakers to Watch in 2024" by Motivator Music on LinkedIn, alongside Tony Robbins, Gary Vee, and Dave Ramsey. He’s the wedding and event industry’s first Certified Speaking Professional and one of only 40 Global Speaking Fellows worldwide.

Since we first chatted with Alan on our podcast in 2021, he has started his own podcast, "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast," which has over 200,000 downloads. Alan has extensive experience in sales, sales management, and marketing, ranging from publishing wedding magazines to serving as Vice President of Sales at The Knot. He’s an education expert for WeddingPro and consults for major industry websites in Ireland, Dubai, India, Australia, and the UK, as well as countless venues, hotels, bridal shops, planners, entertainers, and more. Alan has presented in over 14 countries, five of them in Spanish and recently in French, both of which he taught himself.

Tune in and get ready for an episode filled with actionable insights and a touch of bourbon magic!

Alan Berg's Website
www.alanberg.com

Wedding Business Solutions Podcast
https://podcast.alanberg.com

Transcript

This week's guest is Alan Berg, author of seven books on weddings

>> Mike: Today, I am so excited because my guest is Alan Berg. He's the author of seven books, and on our last episode in 2021, we chatted a lot about his book, wit, wisdom, and the business of weddings. Uh, his other popular books include Shut up and sell more weddings and events. Why are they ghosting me? And his latest books, stop selling and help them buy weddings and events. He speaks to thousands of entrepreneurs like myself and business professionals every year through webinars, live presentations, and on site sales training. We're going to dive deep into actionable steps from his books and podcasts that have resonated with us and so many of us within the wedding industry, Ellen is all about actionable steps. Not only actionable, but small, incremental steps to achieve big results. Now, what's one thing that every wedding professional needs after a long, successful weekend of weddings? And that is a glass of bourbon. Yes. So if you are at a bourbon aficionado, you're going to love this episode, too, because Alan's detailed process of experimenting with different types of woods and aging his bourbons and his different blends, it's just so cool. So, um, that's just another thing him and I have in common, his bourbon. So, uh, you're gonna love the bonus dialogue here towards the. Actually, the front of the episode.


Alan Berg is uniquely qualified to help wedding and event businesses succeed

With more than 25 years in sales, marketing and sales management, Alan Berg is uniquely qualified to help wedding and event businesses succeed. He was included in the top 100 speakers to watch in 2024 by motivator Music on LinkedIn. Alongside Tony Robbins, Gary Vee, and Dave Ramsey. He's the wedding and event industry's first certified speaking professional and only one of, uh, 40 global speaking fellows worldwide. Since chatting with Alan on our podcast since 2021, he has actually started his own podcast, the Wedding Business solutions podcast, with over 200,000 downloads. And he has extensive sales, sales management and marketing experience, ranging from publishing to wedding magazines to vice president of sales at the knot. He's an education expert for wedding pro and consults for major industry websites in Ireland, Dubai, India, Australia, and UK, as well as countless venues, hotels, bridal shops, planners, entertainers, and more. Alan has presented in over 14 countries, five of them in Spanish and recently in French, both of which he taught himself.


We did a 2021 episode together discussing how the Times have changed since 2020

So the first part is gonna be a little bit of a selfish part for me, because we did a 2021 episode together. And like, man, how the Times have changed since 2020 wasn't right. But since talking to you and really digging into your books and shut up and sell more, if your website was an employee, would you fire it in 2021. I just read with wisdom in the business of weddings. We talked a lot about that. And so since then, we've had a completely full calendar. And it's funny, I always tell all of my industry friends, whoever ask, I'm like, I joke, but I'm half serious. I'm like, yeah, I went to the school of Allen Berg, man. I went to the school of Allen Berg. Uh, I just wanted to start just by thanking you, because what you say and in your books and now your podcast has really resonated with me, our team, industry friends of mine. So just had to get that out there from the start.

>> Alan Berg: Well, thank you. You have to take credit for taking action because I can give you some tools, but you had to do it. So I appreciate that. Um, you'll give me this recording so it can go, uh, I can use the video testimonial you just gave me?

>> Mike: Yes, definitely.


What you offer is actionable steps to help build your wedding business

Well, it's crazy because there are so many, like, long people offer to help build your wedding business, but it's just all these long coursework and all this stuff. And I really feel like what you offer is actionable steps from the moment you read or listen to what you're saying.

>> Alan Berg: Well, that, that's what I hope, because as a learner, I hate when somebody gives me this thing that's going to take me all these steps to do. And let's face it, there are some things in life take steps. Like how did I learn Spanish? I didn't do it in a day. I'm learning French. I didn't do that in a day. Right. So you have to commit to stuff. You want to see results in your business. And sometimes it just takes those little tweaks. And that's why none of my books are a long read. The long wisdom and the business of weddings, which you can read chapter by chapter, but if you sat and read the whole thing, it's four and a half hours. Right. And I know that because I did the audiobook so I could read you the book in four and a half hours. Uh, definitely faster if you speed it up like I do when I'm listening to audiobooks. But what I like to give people is actionable things they can do right away, see some results right away, and then it just makes you want to take other steps. And thats achieving seven figures in revenue like you have. Thats because you took steps and then you took other steps, and a lot of them were incremental. But sometimes its that increment that just multiplies as you go down the line.

>> Mike: I love your audiobooks too because its actually you reading the books. There are so many people out there who dont read their own audiobooks and the fact that you read it and then you come out with this podcast, Wedding Business Solutions podcast, its like you just keep giving me more little snippets of another book to read because its you talking to me from the start anyway, you know.

>> Alan Berg: Right. So funny story, uh uh, with AI, two of my ten books were not in audio and that's because they were too similar to other ones. So I have shut up. And Selma weddings and events and then I did a dj band, the lighting photo booth version, I did a caterer venue version and they're, I say it in the preface, they're the same book. I just changed the references so I didn't feel a need to do the audio. We all have limited time and I wasn't going to spend my time on that. But audible actually just came to me recently, Amazon did, because Audible is an Amazon company and they offered to do those two books using a virtual voice. So two of my books are actually out there. All uh, ten books are now on audio, but two of them are out there with a virtual voice that not me reading it. It is my words, it's not rereading it. And I let them do it because they didn't charge me, I let them do it more. Just how does this work? Is this a thing? And it came out pretty good. Uh, really? It says in the beginning it's a virtual voice, but then you're listening to this man's voice. They gave us ten voices to choose from, seven women, three men. And we picked one of the voices and said go with it. So it's pretty wild. I do intend to do all of my books going forward, but what I'm really curious is when they allow this. My books are in Spanish, but I haven't done any of the audiobooks in Spanish. When they have this virtual voice for Spanish, I'm probably going to tell them to do all of them. Eight of the books are in Spanish. I'll probably say, hey, knock yourself out, just do it.

>> Mike: Have you heard of Spotify's AI version? They have now where it makes it? It's like a dj and it uses AI to gauge what you've been listening to, engage what you may like. It's a uh, AI thing on uh, Spotify that just came out. But anyway, the boys like hey, this is a dj and we're going like you could just imagine it's style. Bergamot.

>> Alan Berg: Right.

>> Mike: Give you some options to choose from there.

>> Alan Berg: On the voice, there's an app. There's an app called Lip Dub. Lipdub. And you upload a video or record a video in it, and then you can change the language.

>> Mike: Oh, wow.

>> Alan Berg: So it's you still talking. You see you talking, but now you're speaking German. Now you're speaking Mandarin. Now you're speaking Gen Z. That was one of them, baby. Texas and Pirate were the other options there. So the Texas version is like, y'all and whatever. And the gen zs talking about your Riz or whatever. I didn't understand half the words on it, right. But it's this crazy free app, and just all of a sudden, you're speaking another language.

>> Mike: Wow.

>> Alan Berg: And I'm going to have a woman on my podcast actually recording in a couple of weeks, who's big into attack and AI. And she asked me yesterday, she said, could you. Would you want to be part of a project for me? I said, sure. So she gave me a little script to read, just, like, a few sentences. Her talking to her assistant, I did it. And then she's digitized her voice, and she had it be. I was speaking, but it sounded like her m. Then she did something where she recorded something and took my voice and made it sound like me. And she sent me four different recordings. And two of the four, my wife and I are like, okay, that's pretty darn close. Two of them were like, that's not quite my intonation, but two others like, yeah, it's definitely. My voice sounds a little bit off. If you. You know, if you listen to enough of my stuff, you'd be like, it's Alan. Right. But it's pretty wild what you can do. Of course, this is deep fakes and all. They can do stuff like that.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah.

>> Alan Berg: Uh, but it also gives the ability to take written words and turn them into spoken words in your voice and.

>> Mike: In another language, too. Right.

>> Alan Berg: And that would be lipped up. You could go to a whole other language. And all because translated my latest book into Spanish and French and, uh, 40,000 words.


It took 16 seconds to translate the book, but then it had to get fixed

It took 16 seconds to translate the book, but then it had to get fixed. So then it took weeks for somebody to go through it and fix it, but it still took less time than starting from scratch because you're fixing a translation instead of doing a translation.

>> Mike: So you've been hired to speak in Spanish, too, right? Present Spanish. Yeah.

>> Alan Berg: Five countries.

>> Mike: Yeah, five countries. Crazy how AI has just taken over.

>> Alan Berg: Yeah. I certainly see the day where I could be standing on stage in Korea speaking into a microphone in English, and they hear me in Korea. Right? That's where it's going. You're losing the translator's job. The thing is, it's not a literal translation. It's a contextual translation. So sarcasm, idioms, humor, they don't translate because you say to somebody in another country, oh, I had a bird in the hand. And they're like, why? Like, you like birds? You're like, why do you have a bird in your hand? Right? But then their idioms don't translate to us either. You're like, that makes no. Literally makes no sense. Right. That's why it's an idiom and not just a fact.


Berg shows you four kinds of his favorite bourbon on video

>> Mike: So, since we spoke last two, I've also became a bourbon guy, and I know you as well are bourbon guy. So crazy the things that Covid does to you. Right. But I've named this segment of the podcast called Bourbon with Berg.

>> Alan Berg: Okay.

>> Mike: And I'm going to show you four kinds of my favorite bourbon on video right now. And I'll explain to. I'll explain what they are, uh, if you're just listening to it, and you have to let me know if you've tried it or not. And then would Berg drink it or not? Okay, start with this. You know what this is, right?

>> Alan Berg: That's a Blanton's gold edition.

>> Mike: What do you think?

>> Alan Berg: Uh, I actually have a bottle here. Uh, yes, I would drink it. No, I probably wouldn't buy another one, because I actually did a taste of a regular Blanton's versus a Blanton's gold blind, uh, taste. I had my wife pour them separately, and I actually preferred the regular Blanton's. But the interesting thing is Blanton's are single barrel, so I might like your bottle of gold better than my bottle of gold because they came from different batches, different barrels.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Alan Berg: So, uh, Blanton's. Yes, it's a weeded bourbon. It's really nice, really smooth. Small batch or single barrel, the gold is only sold in Asia, so it's really hard to find here. So, yes, I would definitely drink it, but for the price, I would buy a regular Blanton's over the golden. According to the ones I have, Blanton's.

>> Mike: Is so crazy because it's spicy. It's like the spicier bourbon I have. Normally, I don't like. Normally, I like weeded bourbons, but.

>> Alan Berg: Right. Uh, and again, that is a weeded. But because it's a single barrel. I think yours is a single barrel. If it's a single barrel, you just might not like that barrel.

>> Mike: Okay, next bottle, the Weller light. This is antique one.

>> Alan Berg: Right. So that's Weller. Uh, red label 107. I have a bottle of that here as well. Absolutely. I would drink it. Absolutely. Buy it again. I think of the Wellers, if you can find it at a reasonable price. I like that best for the price. So the green label, the regular, not a fan. If you can find it or something like that, then you step up to the red label there. The next one up I've had is the full proof. So it's a uh, barrel proof.

>> Mike: The blue bottle. Right.

>> Alan Berg: Blue bottle. Really like that. The twelve year of the black label, I've had a drink of it. I've never had a bottle of it because every time I find one it's $600 or more. And I just, I don't spend that kind of money when, when I could get ten bottles or something. But the red label, absolutely lovely. 107. It's not too hot. 107 proof, which is the same, I believe, as some of the pappy's, uh, around 107. Somewhere around there. So yes, absolutely. We do it again. You have it so far, you're two for two.


Lex Rowe bourbon blends are super, super smooth and especially over the rocks

>> Mike: All right, so this next one is one of my favorite. Okay, so this is Lux roe four grain mash bill, double single barrel. So this is that.

>> Alan Berg: Where is that at?

>> Mike: Kentucky? Lex Rowe is out of Kentucky. So okay, this is a weeded barrel and a rye barrel m mixed together and it's got four grains in it and so it's got wheat, rye, corn, malted barley and it's just super, super smooth and especially over the rocks, it's just, it's great.

>> Alan Berg: Nice. I've not seen that, not had that. I do have some bourbon rye blends and im a fan of those as well because you get the depth of the rye and the sweetness of the bourbon together. I uh, was just up at the high west distillery in Utah and I tasted their bur rye. B o u r y e, their bur rye, which was really nice. But at 100 I forget what they want. Dollar 130 a bottle. I bought their double rye instead because they only sell the double rye in that building. So that made it special. You cant find that. Not just can't find it here in New Jersey or in Chicago, you can't find it outside that building. Right.

>> Mike: Wow.

>> Alan Berg: Yeah, that was nice. So I brought that cause I'm getting into the rise, but I'll have to look for that. I'm gonna be in Louisville next month.

>> Mike: Oh, really? Okay, well, you're gonna be home with a bourbon, then.

>> Alan Berg: Well, uh, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why after I see the next bottle.

>> Mike: Okay. You're gonna know right away what this is.

>> Alan Berg: Eagle rare. Best value in a ten year. Absolutely the best value in a ten year. Always a good drink. Solid. Nice color, a nice body. The ten year old. Because, uh, bourbons really start to get really good at the six, seven, eight years or whatever, but the prices start to go up for a ten year. That's absolutely the best value in a tenure that you can regularly find everywhere. Yeah, uh, always a good one. So I've had. I've owned, or actually probably do at the moment, three of those four. I've never seen the other one there. What I'm going to Louisville for with three friends is we're taking a one day course. 09:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m. to become executive bourbon stewards.

>> Mike: Oh, wow. Really?

>> Alan Berg: Yes. So, uh, hopefully, what does that entail, a bourbon steward? I'm going to find out, because 09:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m. we're going to be taking it. And then you take a test at the end of the day. And if you do, you are an executive, a certified executive bourbon steward, which my wife said, what do you get, a certificate? I said, we get a book, we get a pin, and we get bragging rights. That's what we get. I don't know if it means anything else, but I actually have two bottles here that you have never had and can't buy anywhere, you will never find it in a store. Okay. And very long story short is that during COVID When I decide. When I started collecting more, and I decided to try to get a bourbon from every state, and I got a whiskey from every state, not a bourbon. But I did complete 51, including Washington, DC, along the way, the spreadsheet that I was keeping track. I have owned a little bit over 200 bottles of whiskey at one time or another.

>> Mike: Oh, my God. My wife's nightmare.

>> Alan Berg: Yeah. Uh, not right now. The most I ever had at one time was about 90 something. I think we're at about 70 right now. But very long story short, we started blending together different ones and then using different kinds of wood to reage them, because you can either put it in a barrel, which will reage it, or you can add wood, which is like putting it in a barrel. Except you put the wood into the bottle or a jar instead. So. And then we make our own blend and then give away these. It could be called infinity bottles. Infinity bottles. When you blend different ones together and just keep going in the same bottle, these are just blends. But being a marketing guy, I can't put it in a mason jar and say, hey, Mike, here you go. Here. I did my label maker on it, right? So. So this is the berg bourbon blend.

>> Mike: Oh, so this seven.

>> Alan Berg: This is seven of ten.

>> Mike: Wow.

>> Alan Berg: Seven of ten. And what it says on the label is the. It says three b. The berg bourbon blend. And then in the arc, it says, blend it in New Jersey. And then the other arc says, you got a problem with that? So this was bottles. Batch 16, bottle seven of ten. This was bottled on March 23. There's a little tag. The tag says, what's in it? Okay. So you can't read it because it's blurring there. This happened to be. Normally, I call it a b team blend because, um, I was taking the ones that they're good, but they're not. Like what you just showed me, that wouldn't be those bottles.


Norman Berg blends different woods with port to create unique whiskeys

This was actually an 18 blend. So I took seven different bottles, and you'll recognize some of these. So, maker's mark, cask strength.

>> Mike: Oh, yeah.

>> Alan Berg: Uh, widow. Widow Jane out of New York. A ten year St. Augustine port finished, out of Florida. Angels envy. Also port finished. Penelope barrel strength. Penelope is one of them.

>> Mike: Oh, I love their toasted. Have you ever had their toasted one toasted? It is their toasted line. But I like Penelope. Yeah.

>> Alan Berg: So I have a couple of penelopes. This one was 113.9 proof. Traverse City, a barrel proof. That was a 117. Actually heading to Traverse City next week on vacation. And an eagle, rare. So I put a different kind of wood into each bottle. So the maker's mark got red oak. The widow Jane got hard maple. And then there was white oak, white ash, yellow birch, soft maple, and cherry. All toasted woods. Put it into each bottle, let that sit for. How long was it? Eight weeks. And then took the wood out, put them all together, and let it sit for another three weeks. And then bottled them. And that's what's in here.

>> Mike: Wow. Uh, that's so cool.

>> Alan Berg: And then my dad was an irish whiskey guy, and he passed last year at 93. Every day had a little irish whiskey, a little Jameson or something. That's what I think how we made it to 93. And I brought home all of his whiskeys after we sold his apartment, blended them together with different woods, bottled them for the family only. And this bottle here, this very classy tapered bottle, this is Zetas blend because the grandchildren called them zeta. So its a fine blend of whiskeys from the collection of Norman Berg. So these bottles are only my sons and my sister. We have. These are. This is my dads whiskey, blended, aged.

>> Mike: And just for us, why can't we live closer?

>> Alan Berg: Well, if you happen to send me your address, one of these might show up.

>> Mike: Oh, wow, that'd be. Yeah. You didn't even know I was gonna ask about bourbon. And you're just casually pulling these off your desk here. So either at 11:22 a.m. so anytime after. Oh, anytime after 10:00 a.m. is okay with me.

>> Alan Berg: But, yeah, well, they're normally back here. And you see the empty jar? There's a big empty one gallon jar from target that's waiting for the next batch. And the next batch is not aging right now because you know how, uh, angels envy is finished in port barrels, right? So I found in our wine fridge, uh, a bottle of pork. It's been there for years. And I said, huh? We have a saying in my family. Why just do something when you can overdo it? So what I did is I took a bunch of mason jars, and I took american oak and french oak toasted woods, and I put them in the jars, and I filled them with port. So I'm soaking the wood in port. I'm soaking others in a new Mexico dessert wine. They can't call it port because it wasn't made in Portugal. And I also bought you. Sometimes we'll see, um, scotch and irish more than bourbons, but are finished in a. It'll say px sherry. So it's Pedro Ximenez sherry casks. So I bought a bottle of Pedro ximena sherry, and I'm soaking five different kinds of woods in Pedro Jimenez Sherry. So when I do some aging, I can be aging in port. I can be aging in a, uh, px sherry cask because the wood has been soaked in.

>> Mike: How long do you age it for in the wood?

>> Alan Berg: Six weeks before I taste it. I keep some out, as the scientists would call it, the control sample. I keep some out, and that's so I can tell if it did anything right. If it didn't make any difference, then I'm not going to bother bottling it. But then I might age it longer. Sometimes ill take the wood out, put a different kind of wood in. I had one batch where eight weeks with wood just wasnt quite right. I did three more weeks with other kinds of wood. Better, but not quite. And then a friend send me a bottle of Traverse City bourbon with a cherry finish because its called the Cherry city. Traverse City is known for the cherries and stuff. And it was too sweet for him. So he sent me two thirds of a bottle. He said it's just too sweet. Maybe you can do something with it. Well, this batch needed something. And I said to my wife, you know, what? What do we have to lose? So I poured that in that two thirds of a bottle, mixed it around, and it was exactly what it needed. Just a little bit of sweetness that was missing. Did it?


A little bit of sweetness at the end makes the difference

And then I. Every time, well, uh, those bottles are gone now, but every time I had somebody tasting that, they're like, oh my gosh, man, it was so much trouble for me to get that one right. That little thing made the difference. A little bit of sweetness at the end. A little cherry sweetness made the difference. Just, wow. We're doing science projects here.

>> Mike: Oh my God. That is crazy.


Alan Berg: That was awesome. You weren't expecting that, were you, Mike

Well, this concludes the bourbon with berg segment. Thank you, Alan. That was awesome.

>> Alan Berg: You weren't expecting that, were you, Mike?

>> Mike: No, but that was like, that was perfect. That was so great. And I can't wait to try that one day. You showed me there and ah, I'm assuming you have eight, nine and ten bottled.

>> Alan Berg: That was batch 16. Okay, I have, we just bottled batch 19 so I can send you batch 19. Batch 18 was my dad's. Seventeen s I think were gone. Some of them were even smaller. Some of them had six bottles and that was it. But we just, this is the 16 here and then I have the 19. So ill figure which one im going to send to you.

>> Mike: Very cool. Thanks, Alan.


Your podcast has over 200,000 downloads on audio alone

Also, the last time we chatted, you did not have a podcast. And now you've got the wedding business illusions podcast. And I think I read and it makes me so happy for you. But I was like, that is so not fair. Over 200,000 downloads, right on your podcast.

>> Alan Berg: Not per episode. Not per episode.

>> Mike: Oh, but total. That's awesome.

>> Alan Berg: Yeah, I looked the other day, it was 229,000 on audio. And there's about, I want to say probably about 40,000 YouTube views because I have like 250 podcasts.

>> Mike: And how many dates are you on the road right now?

>> Alan Berg: Depends upon the month. The month of May, most of the.

>> Mike: Month because these episodes come out like twice a week. Do you have like a mobile podcast?

>> Alan Berg: Uh, I get way ahead. So every Wednesday is, is me, and then every other Monday as a guest, so six times a month, and I have her virtual assistant, so she does the editing and the uploading. We do very little editing, but the uploading. So I'm recorded now through the end of June, and we're recording this in the early part of May, so I'm not rushed. And I recorded three more episodes the other day, so I could be into July already for that. So, yeah, we stay ahead, but yeah, really surprised. I had no aspirations for it. When I look at other podcasts, because you're looking at mine, I'm looking at people that get hundreds of thousands per episode. Um, I get over time, about 1000 to 1213 hundred per episode, because people will go back and listen. And if you imagine 1000 people sitting in a room, because I speak and I've spoken to 1000 people, 2000, 3000 people, I know what it's like to look out at a thousand people, and that's what I imagine. I'm speaking always to one person, because only one person listening at a time. But I understand that it's like a thousand people in a room with headphones on. Right. I'm still speaking to you, and people come to me all the time, trying to artificially raise my downloads. Right. I'm sure you get the same thing. Um, you know, we can increase it. No, I want my audience to be organic. I want them to listen because they want to listen. It's a thousand downloads is not 1000 people. Because not everybody listens to every episode, right? People listen to different ones. So for me, its just a great way to just get a thought off my head, because mine are five to ten minutes. And its literally I write down on a spreadsheet, I write down a sentence or a question or a thought, and I started something called ask me anything so people could submit questions and thoughts. I did one the other day, it was like four minutes. It just took me four minutes to talk about whatever that was. Then I did another one, was eight minutes. And I don't worry about it, I just. It's as long as it needs to be.


Burning question from me. Did you write that? Is that you playing piano

>> Mike: Burning question from me. So that intro song, is that. Did you write that? Is that you playing piano?

>> Alan Berg: No, it's actually really cool. And I did not do that. And I like it so much that I leave it there. And every time I think about maybe I should do it, I said I'm not doing it until I come up with something I like better. And usually the stuff that I make up, like when my dad passed, I had a tune that I wrote for him, and it's a slower. It's not right for that thing. So I've thought about it, but then I have to go pull out my electric keyboard, because I'm usually playing my baby grand. The electric one's in a closet somewhere, so it's like, eh, I'll just leave it. But thank you. Thank you for thinking it was me.

>> Mike: Oh, it's so catchy. I love it. It reminds me of, like, if you ever listen to, like, the Ramsay show and you hear that big tenor saxophone and what is that song? I can't think of what it is, but I, uh, do. I'm like, alan Berg. Yeah. So it's awesome.


Has podcasting opened doors to business opportunities that you may not have had otherwise

Has podcasting opened? Because you said, you got to ask me anything on your website where questions come in from anybody. Has podcasting opened up even more doors to just reconnect with people, business opportunities that you may not have had otherwise?

>> Alan Berg: I don't do any advertising, uh, partly because the audience is too small for advertisers and partly because I don't want to dilute the value. You're coming in to hear me. So if I promote something, it's something I'm doing. I can say anecdotally, it's definitely helped, because people will say, I saw you at this conference, and I listened to your podcast, or I read your book, and I listened to your podcast. So it definitely helps to keep me out there. It makes it easier to find me because I have a YouTube channel now with 250 videos, so that certainly makes it easier to find me. But I don't know that. I can't say that somebody, because of the podcast, has decided to do business with me. But so many people mention it as part of the thing, and that's really what business is like. You just want to be wherever they are. So if you go to Amazon, I'm there. If you go to kindle on, um, there. If you go to audible, I'm there. If you go to wedding MBA, I'm there. And if you go podcasting on Apple or Spotify or YouTube, I'm there. So that's the idea. And it gives me a reason for emailing my audience six times a month. Right. So, uh, push that out. So that certainly keeps me in front of them. And I think because what I speak about is what my audience is going through, feeling, understanding, wants to know more about it, shows the relevancy of what I do. Right. If you're not relating to what I'm speaking about on the podcast, you're not going to buy a book, right? You're not going to reach out for consulting. And so I had somebody the other day who uh, came to a workshop I did in Wisconsin, because he read one of my books, and in the back of the book it says reach out to Alan about consulting. So he did, and it just happened to be, I was going to be in Milwaukee and I said, well, for the price of the 2 hours on Zoom with me, you can spend a day with me in a mastermind. And hes like cool, right? Right. So now, how did he find out about the book, right? Did he hear me speak? Did he see me on a wedding pro webinar? Did he come to a conference? I dont know, but he said it was the book that made him reach out. But he also listens to the podcast, and people will do that. Theyll say, hey, you said this on the podcast or whatever. And sometimes im like, yeah, did I? Guess I did. I dont know. Yeah. Because there's 250 of them, right? So open doors. Not necessarily. I already had a name, I already had a brand. I've been in the industry for, you know, uh, 25, 30 years. So, uh, but that said, not everybody knows you, right? Doesn't matter how long you've been doing this. Not everybody knows. I mean, just think about the music business, right? How many you listen to, your genre, your station, your playlist, your whatever. And then I go to places all the time and I hear stuff and I have shazam, right? Because I'm like, what is that? I've never heard that. And that's the world we live in. So when it's the curse of knowledge, right? If somebody knows you, right? And knows your band, they can't unknow, uh, that, right? That's the curse of knowledge, right? And somebody else is like, what, you haven't heard of Mike and his band? No. Okay. You haven't heard about people. Like, how do you not know Alan Burke? I said, listen, I need people to not know me because that's new audience. It's important to me to know that I'm not only speaking to my audience, but that new people are being told about it, finding out about it organically through a Facebook group, uh, Instagram or whatever, that expands our audience. If the only people that pay attention to what we do are people that already know us, that's not a bad thing. But you're not growing your audience, you're losing it because you're always losing people along the way.

>> Mike: Podcasting just seems a great way to be like the audio magazine of your industry, you know? It's a really cool way to connect with people. When I was in music school, I. The way that I was taught to get, become m a better musician was to learn from somebody else and to teach somebody else. And I taught many, many lessons over the years. Bass lessons in, uh, it just made me so much of a better musician just because it reinforced a lot of concepts in my head over and over and over again.


Does podcasting make you an even better speaker than you already were

Does podcasting, do you think, made you an even better speaker than you already were just because of these concepts that are just over and over in your head again?

>> Alan Berg: Well, that's what sales training does for me. What makes me a better salesperson, because I'm teaching you how to do it. And it's funny because sometimes people will reach out to me and ghost me, and I wonder if they're just looking to see how often I follow up, because that's what I teach, right? I have a book. Why are they ghosting me? And I've actually written to people. I've heard that sometimes people reach out to me just to see how I'll follow up, and they ghost me. I'm sure that's not the case for you, but that'll be my follow up to them. But I think I agree with you totally. So, when I was in, uh, college, I would lead study groups for that very reason. If I can help you learn it, I must know it, right? I have to know it if I can teach it to you. I'm also smart, uh, enough, old enough, mature enough. What do you want to, whatever you want to call it, to know when I'm not the right person, and that's when I refer someone else. You need somebody to help you with your social ads. It's not me. You need help. Somebody with your google business page. It's not me. I have people, right, that I can refer, but it's, we have to know. You don't want me learning it on your dime. And it's different things if you say, hey, listen, I don't know what, you don't know it. Let's learn it together. That's a different story. But if you're paying me, you're paying me because I'm the expert already. You're paying me because I'm already the person to help you with that. So. Absolutely. Uh, what I think the podcasting does is it keeps me on the pulse of my audience, because a lot of my topics are, I heard somebody say something, or I got off a consultation call with someone. I'm like, hey, I got an idea for a podcast. I turn the camera on, I start recording, and it's those things where either you're thinking it or you read it and go, oh, okay, I want to know more about that. And that's the idea. It's always been my thing for articles, for books, for speaking is, uh, like, uh, when I go to speak to a group, I'll say to the board, so at your meetings, what are people griping about? What are they complaining about? What is the big thing that's getting under their skin right now? And if I have a topic about that, or can make a topic, if I feel qualified, that's where my new topics come from.


Do you treat leads differently that come through your contact form versus a listing site

>> Mike: I, uh, love a guest you had on your podcast. His name is David Avrin. Is that. Am I saying his name right?

>> Alan Berg: Yeah, Avrin. Yep.

>> Mike: He just went off about contact forms. He was like, if you only have a contact form on your website with no phone number, thank you so much, because you just put all my kids through college. I just took all your gigs. Right. Do you treat leads differently that come through your contact form versus a listing site? Like the not. Would you consider those contact form inquiries warmer leads? Because they've talked a lot about in the past how a phone call is a high friction question, even compared to, like, going out on a date with a girl and you got to do a little back and forth first.

>> Alan Berg: Right.

>> Mike: How does that communication differ based on that conversation with Dave about the contact form versus, like, the leads if you get through the note phone call?

>> Alan Berg: Well, I think if somebody has gotten to your website, what you usually don't know is how did they get there? Because they could have gotten there from the knot or wedding wire or your social media or a Google search, right. We don't know how they got there. So, uh, I can't compare me because I'm not on listing sites like that. That's not how people find me. My website, my social, that's how people find me. But if you think about it, for you, if somebody's been to your website where they're are no other bands, where there is no. Nobody, uh, else, there's no noise from anybody else, you control that. Now, if you've done a good job, your site is geared towards getting you the inquiry, because that's unless you're booking on the site, right? That's the job of your site. So when you go to Weddingwire and the not, they're inquiring with more than one company, which is also true when they come to your website. But at the moment, they click submit on your website, there's no other sites there, right? They'd have to go to somebody else's site, whereas on the note, they just click over to the other tab and there's everybody else. So would I treat them differently? Not initially. I treat everybody as a good lead until proven otherwise. Would I ask different questions? It depends. What did they tell me? If all they said is, hi, I'd like to get information, pricing and packages, well, I treat that the same through your website as through the knot or weddingwire or Instagram or TikTok or anyplace else. That's a good lead that doesn't know what else to ask me. So they're asking me the one thing they don't know. They know, uh, how to pay you. So how much is it? So I think people treat them differently, and I would say, are you more likely to close people through your site? Maybe. Possibly. I've seen that with my clients that your closing ratio could be better. Now that also could be self fulfilling. Are you treating those leads differently than maybe you're closing them better? So if, uh, you think about this, every time you get an inquiry, only one company is going to win that sale, right? So only one band or one venue or one photographer, one DJ or whatever is going to win that sale. Everybody else is going to lose. So when you get an inquiry, somebody's going to win, why not you? And that's answering faster, answering better, not rushing the sale, having a better conversation through digital, or should say through the media that they chose. Right? So if they texted you, text back, if they emailed email back, if they WhatsApp you or whatever it is, Instagram message, whatever, start there. Maybe you need to move it to a zoom. Maybe you need to move it to a phone call, maybe an in person meeting, whatever, but don't do that right away and just have a better conversation. I think you can get good conversion, you'll probably still have a better conversion through your site, because some of the leads coming through your site where they did not go to the knot or wedding wire or some other site to try to find someone like you, maybe they were already looking for you, right? Maybe they were referred directly to you by a venue. Maybe they were referred directly to you by another couple. Maybe they saw you at another wedding or an event, right? I went to, uh, my, uh, cousin's wedding, and the DJ was fantastic. They had seen him in another wedding, right? So that wasn't us. They didn't go to someplace like the wedding where they're not looking for a DJ. They're like, when we get married, he's the guy. So I think through your sight, that's why you would have maybe a better conversion. I actually did a podcast about this. I think it was in wit, wisdom. Also, I don't care about SEO. I don't want somebody who's looking for someone like me. Now I used to say, mike, that no one, I've never booked anyone who found me through a Google search that didn't already know me. I used to say that because about two months ago I did, and they were looking for someone to help with their elopement business and they were looking for sales training and my site came up. They sent me a text message at 730 at night on a Saturday. My wife was doing something so I wasn't interrupting family time. So I answered and by 1015 it was booked. No phone call. We were booked, scheduled, paid the next day, never had a phone call. Now why did I, um, not try to change it to a phone call? Conversation was going fine. The conversation was happening just fine. Back and forth to now add friction and say, okay, now we need to talk on the phone. They probably would have done it, but there was no need to. So I was able to have this conversation, make the sale, and they booked. And then I found out in the conversation they didn't know me. They had never seen me on a stage, they had never seen the podcast, never read my books, they just did a Google search. And then when looking at my website, they're like, wow, I guess he's the guy because my resume stands for itself. And they actually apologized to me. They said, now we're sorry. We didn't know you.


Putting an idea of price on your website will reduce your number of inquiries

>> Mike: You have an episode where you talk about how just because something works sometimes doesn't mean it's going to work all the time. And that made me think about totally guilty here of, and I just got married myself a couple months ago. Here. Thank, uh, you. So I was really seeing what was happening with other types of vendors and all the time with every time we submitted an inquiry, hey, can we hop on the phone? Hey, can we hop on the phone? Hey.

>> Alan Berg: And did, uh, you want to hop on the phone?

>> Mike: Not really, no.

>> Alan Berg: Right.

>> Mike: And exactly. And sometimes I did just because I was interested in the company. But it makes me realize, okay, well, how many times did I send that text and didn't get a reply back? And thankfully a few have said, well, I really just want to know your pricing first on your packages first, make sure it's something that I could commit to, but I think it's easy to just focus on the ones that are, that do respond. And then you're missing out on so much business because you just simply ask too high of a commitment question right away and just, well, if it, well, this is what works. So if they don't want to hop on the phone with me, then, right.

>> Alan Berg: And that's the thing is nothing, nothing works all the time. Sometimes they get on the phone and you have a conversation, it's great. And then sometimes, just like you planning your wedding, like, uh, ill get on a call, just not yet. Like, just give me an idea. I think thats where youre thinking is. Are, uh, we in the ballpark here? And this is where I talk about pricing on websites. If you have no pricing on your website, youre either losing business because people dont reach out because they dont have an idea what you charge, or youre getting people to reach out who cant afford you because you gave them no idea. Right. So those are the two possibilities there. And actually, David Avrin said this in his book, why customers leave and how to win them back. You'll never know the people that went to your site and left without inquiring because they didn't like something, something wasn't there or whatever. And I think that's the key. Putting an idea of price will reduce your number of inquiries. But the people reaching out now at least have a ballpark. And if that's a realistic ballpark, then price should be less of an issue. I'm not going to say it's never an issue. It should be less of an issue. You might find out that they need to be at the high end of your price because of whatever their event is. And they think, hey, I'd like to be at the low end, but at least they're in the range. And I, uh, had this conversation with a client of mine, a venue. They have two different spaces. They're regular big space, then they have a small space. And I said, put a price range to cut the inquiries. But the price range was 4000 to 60,000. I said, did you mean 40 to 60? Leave a zero off. And they said, no, no, no. Well, the small space we do like, you know, showers and stuff, and that starts at 4000. I said, you can't say 4000 to 60. You've just negated the whole idea of a price range. Right. What you need is two price ranges, one for the big space, one for the small space to be much more realistic. And now for a wedding, you're going to be 30 to 60. But for this party you'll be 4000 to whatever 1020, whatever the number is. But they negated the whole value of a price range by making it ridiculously wide. I don't mind if it's wide, if it's real. Theirs wasn't. They negated the purpose. The purpose is to try to cut down on the people that can't afford them. And yet they put a number starting at 4000 which is encouraging everybody with every wedding to reach out.

>> Mike: When you're putting pricing on the website, it doesn't have to be pricing for individual service, just a range. Hey, we range from ten thousand dollars to twenty thousand dollars. Most couples who work with us, a good portion end up here in the middle.

>> Alan Berg: Right. And again you can say, plus you can say we go from, weddings go from 10,000 to 20,000. Plus most of our couples end up around 15 or 16. Lets have a uh, if you like to get availability, get a price for your wedding, call us, email us, text us, contact us. Here you go. Right. But now youve set in whats called anchoring where youve anchored those two numbers of ten and 20. And now its like, okay, well thats where were playing. If youre looking to spend three on a band were not the band. Five on a band were not the band. Now that doesnt mean that ceremony music might not add a little bit on or this might not add a little bit on, but youre not going to unless youre also doing ceremony separately. That should be a separate price range. Prices for ceremonies go from 1000 to 5000 depending upon if they want to soloist or if they want whatever. Thats the same with this venue. They have two rooms. They should have had two price ranges, but they only had one which now, uh, imagine if you just said the cost of a soloist singing at your ceremony to the price of twelve pieces with Tower of Power horn section. Right. Right. The range is going to be too big and that's why you, if you're going to put a range, make it a realistic range and give it some context as to what that gives them without giving them enough detail because then they want to reach out to get the full detail.

>> Mike: I think one of the biggest things I've learned from you too is that it's possible to sell your results without hopping on the phone. Like if I look at your cover photo on your website, it's actually the back of Alan's head, but you see a packed crowd, people engaged in a packed event space. So like oh my God, I remember some of our earliest website photos was just like a close up of our singer in the microphone like this. And now. No, it's like, honestly, half the pictures on our website don't even have the band in it. Or if you do, you see a silhouette of us.

>> Alan Berg: Uh, well, the picture I would put of the band is shot from either behind the band or across the dance floor where the band is on the other side of the packed crowd. Right. You're making that happen. That the point of me having me on stage from behind is there's no reason for me to be there if there wasn't an event. So I want to show the people that came to that event because that's why I'm on stage. I'm on the stage for them, I'm not on stage for me. Right. So showing their faces, showing them engaged, that that picture is wedding mba. Right? So there's, I don't know, a thousand or 2000 people in the room, depending upon if you're on your phone or a desktop.


Every year Morgan Lee photography takes pictures for me at a wedding

But that's the point. Uh, and the first time I did a picture like that, I had to twist the photographer's arm. I'm like, please just go behind me on stage and take it. She's like, why? I said, just do it, please just do it. And then she came running to me afterwards to show me your camera. After I got off stage, she's like, oh, look at this picture. It's like, thank you. And it was on my bookmarks and I just put it on everything because it was just such a great picture. So every year now it's actually Morgan Lee photography out of Utah. Morgan comes to wedding NBA and she comes behind me on stage, on that main stage, whether there's 500 or 3000 people and takes the pictures for me.

>> Mike: Wow. Oh my God, that is so awesome.


Alan Berg speaking at Marquis show in Chicago on June 24

Before we go, I know you have an event coming up in Chicago you're going to be a part of, right?

>> Alan Berg: I do the marquee show, which I've spoken at every year since they've had it. Um, I'm also doing a workshop. So on Monday, June 21, I got my date, right? Yeah, June 24, I'm doing an afternoon workshop. So 01:00 p.m. to 05:00 p.m. uh, we're going to go from the inquiry to the sale. It's a small group, about 25 people going to dive deep into that. So it's presentation mastermind ish. It's like a master class in the afternoon. And then I'm speaking at the Marquis show, the rest of that week. But if you want to find out more about that, you can go to my website, allenburg.com dot. Actually, if you go to podcast, you can get links to my podcast, and it also has the schedule there, and it'll have links to that.

>> Mike: Alan Berg, thank you so much. And, yeah, we will have all the links in the show notes here and also in the front of this episode as well. So, Alan, thank you so much for joining me again. It's always so inspiring and fun chatting with you. And, uh, um, not only did I learn more about weddings, but I learned more about bourbon. So what more can you for?

>> Alan Berg: That's it. What we can can ask for is we have never jammed together, so they still have that video.

>> Mike: That is true. Oh, my God.

>> Alan Berg: That was jamming and having bourbon at the same time. That's. That's it.

>> Mike: So it can't get better than that.


Alan: I received a bottle of Berg bourbon blend recently

Okay, that's it for this week. But I just have to make a quick note and say, since recording this episode, I have received a bottle of Berg bourbon blend. And I had about, I don't know, a shot's worth of bourbon. And I sipped it slow, and I was like, on the floor. And I'm like, what is happening here? What is in this thing? And I look at the label, and it says, for this experiment, we took 718 bottles, ones that we like, and put a different wood type right into the bottle. Then after eight weeks, we took the woods out and blended them all together. We let them sit for three weeks and then bottled them. I'm like, man, I was putting them in wood, aging them longer. That's what's, you know, making me feel drunk from a shot. What is happening? But, of course, I look at the different bourbons he puts in here, and he's got one, uh, hundred and ten proof makers. Mark Cask strength, St. Augustine port finish, 102 proof. Penelope barrel strength, 113 proof. Traverse city barrel proof, 117 proof. Whoo. So this, this bourbon will put some hair on your chest, that's for sure. But you know what threw me off? This is what threw me off is because normally, bourbons with this high of a proof, I have to have over the rocks. Over the rocks, because otherwise it's just too hot for me. It's not enjoyable. But this one in particular was just so smooth, I didn't feel the heat coming from it. And, uh, you know, like I would typically with just a higher proof bourbon. And so it must have just been him aging these, uh, with different types of woods and the, and the blend, I guess, that he was. That he put together here. Um, but it was amazing. So thank you so much, Alan.


How many leads are you missing out on because you never filled out a contact form

You know, one of the things that I walked away with from this episode is how many leads are you missing out on? Not because you didn't convert them, but because they never filled out a contact form in the first place, because you don't have pricing on your website. You don't have a way for them to text you, call you, email you. David Avrin, a guest of, uh, Allen's we were talking about, says, literally, the contact form is the voicemail, you know, the answering machine of the website world. So, um, I thought that was very interesting. You know, the pictures that you're posting on your website, do they show you or do they show results? Think back to that photo that we chatted about at the back of Alan's head. You know, uh, it's not a close up of Alan M. Burke, but it's all the people that you see in that event. You made that happen. And that's the way to approach photos on your website, is it's not always so much, uh, showing you only, right. It's what you made happen. I'm going to show this picture doesn't have a picture of the band. This picture has a ton of people dancing. And we made that happen. You know, always a great time chatting with Alan. Next week, we're gonna have Julie Novak on the podcast. She is the CEO and co founder of Party Slate. That's www.partyslate.com. um, so if you're not already familiar with party slate, please go ahead and check them out because we're gonna be chatting all party slate next week. You are extraordinary. We'll see you next time on funk tastic chats. Once in a lifetime, love. And I don't want my life to be like it was. Maybe because your life has enough, but every just got to be bright enough. Once in a lifetime.