Quiz: Marketing and Getting Your First Clients
21 items: 12 multiple choice · 5 true/false · 3 short answer · 1 applied scenario with rubric.
Answers in <details>. Attempt each before opening.
Part 1 — Multiple Choice (12)
Q1. You are primarily marketing to:
(a) Engaged couples (b) The eight or ten people in your market who get asked "can you recommend a planner?" (c) Anybody browsing wedding content (d) Your existing clients' friends
Answer
**(b).** **A couple hires a planner roughly once; a venue coordinator recommends one thirty times a year** — **and almost none of your competitors has ever thought of them as an audience.**Q2. Delphine is asked thirty times a year and gives three names. For one of the three, at 35% conversion and an $8,400 fee, that is worth:
(a) $8,400 a year (b) $29,400 a year (c) $84,000 a year (d) Impossible to estimate
Answer
**(b).** **10 recommendations × 35% = 3.5 bookings.** **And the cost of being one of the three is about six hours a year** — which are not sales calls but **doing your job well in front of somebody who is watching.**Q3. Of the six things that get you onto a coordinator's list, roughly 70% is:
(a) Sending photographs of their venue (b) Referring work to them (c) Doing the work well in front of them (d) Staying visible between events
Answer
**(c)**, and there is no substitute. **Chapter 30's damage walk, the 09:00 sweep, a load-out that finishes early** — which is why **for a planner, marketing and delivery are not separable.**Q4. The standard "please add me to your preferred supplier list" email fails because:
(a) It is too long (b) It contains no information about whether you are good, and asks before offering (c) It should be a phone call (d) Coordinators do not read email
Answer
**(b).** What works instead arrives **as a colleague rather than a supplicant** — *"I'm running a wedding here on the 14th; is there anything about the site that catches planners out?"* **Asks for nothing, signals competence in two lines.**Q5. Referring work to competitors is recommended because:
(a) It is polite (b) You are giving away an enquiry worth nothing to you and creating an obligation (c) It reduces competition (d) It is expected in the industry
Answer
**(b).** **Wrong date, wrong fee, wrong fit** — and the recipient gets a booking. **Your competitors are the second-best referral source in this industry and the only one that requires no marketing at all.**Q6. A portfolio full of beautiful tablescapes is:
(a) Exactly right (b) A florist's or stylist's portfolio — evidence of somebody else's work (c) Necessary for social media (d) Better than captions
Answer
**(b).** **What a planner sells is Chapter 2's calm and Chapter 37's invisible competence, and neither photographs.** **What works is a caption that describes a decision** — *"a field with no power and one access track; we moved the ceremony forty-five minutes because the neighbouring bar's music starts at five."*Q7. A planner's website is primarily for:
(a) Generating cold enquiries (b) Confirming a referral — somebody has your name and is checking you are real (c) Ranking in search (d) Displaying your taste
Answer
**(b)** — **80% of its job.** The four questions a referred visitor asks: **are you real · do you do my kind of wedding · what does it cost · what happens if I get in touch.**Q8. The chapter's position on publishing prices:
(a) Publish a full price list (b) Publish nothing (c) Publish a starting-from figure, not a list (d) Publish only for coordination
Answer
**(c).** *"Full planning starts at $8,400."* **It filters, it does not commit, and it makes the first conversation possible** — while preserving the ability to price by fit.Q9. The difference between a converting post and a performing one:
(a) Engagement rate (b) Frequency (c) A post that gets four hundred likes from planners performs; a post a coordinator screenshots and sends to a couple converts (d) Whether it is paid
Answer
**(c).** Social is **a credibility channel, not an acquisition channel** — roughly zero to two of a new planner's first ten clients — **and it should be capped at two to three hours a week.**Q10. In the worked CPA table, the most expensive channel is:
(a) The wedding fair (b) The directory listing (c) Instagram (d) Paid search
Answer
**(c)** at **$4,080** — **and it appears free**, because 120 hours is not on any invoice. **Relationships run at $278 and past-client referrals at $91.**Q11. The highest-value step in the enquiry sequence:
(a) The consultation (b) Qualifying in three lines before you meet (c) The proposal (d) The follow-up call
Answer
**(b).** **Date, scale, and which service — three lines in an email will end perhaps a third of enquiries before anybody spends an hour**, which is Chapter 37's 144 hours.Q12. The follow-up call after a proposal should:
(a) Ask for a decision (b) Restate the value (c) Name the three objections out loud — the money, the scope, or the fit (d) Offer a discount
Answer
**(c).** **It gives permission for each and makes an honest answer easier than a polite one** — and a planner who knows which of the three it is can respond, while one who receives *"we'll think about it"* cannot.Part 2 — True or False (5)
Q13. A wedding fair is a reasonable investment for a new planner.
Answer
**Marginal at best.** In the worked table it runs at **$1,773 per booking** against **$278 for relationships and $91 for past-client referrals** — **and Case Study 36.1's planner spent $4,100 on fairs and directories for two bookings while ten of fourteen came from five free relationships.**Q14. Instagram is essentially free for a solo planner.
Answer
**False, and it is the chapter's sharpest arithmetic.** **120 hours is three working weeks**, and at a required rate it is the most expensive channel in the table. **It is capable of consuming an unbounded share of your non-billable 40%, and it feels like work.**Q15. You should follow up on an unanswered proposal until you get an answer.
Answer
**False.** **One follow-up, then stop.** A planner who chases three times **has taught a client that their time is not scarce**, and people who go quiet have decided. **One exception: a short, true note when the date is about to go.**Q16. "She was amazing, highly recommend" is a useful review.
Answer
**False.** **Specificity is what makes a review travel** — *"our caterer changed six weeks out and we didn't have to do anything"* tells somebody exactly what they would be buying. **And you can ask for it:** *"could you say what actually happened rather than that it was lovely?"*Q17. Solving problems visibly in front of the client is good marketing.
Answer
**False, and it shades quickly into creating them.** **Report what happened, afterwards, factually. Do not perform it while it is happening.** **Chapter 27's argument that on the day you are invisible stands — the debrief is where the visibility belongs.**Part 3 — Short Answer (3)
Q18. Explain why the relationship channel outperforms every paid one, with the arithmetic.
Answer
**Because a recommender is asked repeatedly and a client hires once.** Delphine is asked thirty times a year; a couple hires a planner roughly once in a lifetime. **In the worked CPA table** — with the planner's own time costed — **relationships run at $278 per booking and past-client referrals at $91**, against **$1,773 for a wedding fair, $2,004 for a directory, and $4,080 for Instagram.** **And past-client referrals are the only channel that improves with time**, which is why Chapter 30's wrap-up meeting is, commercially, a marketing activity. **The cost is six hours a year per relationship, and the six hours are mostly just doing the job well in front of somebody who is watching.**Q19. State the cold-start problem and the four ways in.
Answer
**You get onto a venue's list by working there well; you work there by being hired; you are hired because you are on a list.** **Chapter 36's "four to six from people who already know you" is a description of who can start this business easily**, and it disadvantages anybody whose network does not contain people getting married expensively. **The four ways in, ranked:** **work for somebody else first** — assist a planner or take an in-house venue role, which gives training, network, reference, and portfolio simultaneously · **be the second planner**, paid, on somebody else's event · **enter through a community you belong to** · **enter through a competence most planners lack.** **Advertising your way in is not one of them.**Q20. How do you make invisible work visible, and what is the line?
Answer
**Four partial fixes.** **Captions that describe a decision**, which is the cheapest and most under-used. **Naming the work at the debrief** — Chapter 30's going-first is also a marketing act, because a client told *"I found something in the venue notes that was wrong for eighteen months"* now knows what they bought. **A niche**, which converts "excellent" into "the person who does the difficult ones" — a thing a buyer *can* evaluate before purchase. **And reviews with specifics.** **None closes the gap fully and the residue is real.** **The line: do not manufacture visible crises.** **Report what happened, afterwards, factually; do not perform it while it is happening.**Part 4 — Applied Scenario (1)
Q21. A planner, two years in, in a city of 400,000. Eight weddings last year at an average $4,900. **Marketing last year: a directory at $2,400 (1 booking) · Instagram, ~180 hours (2 bookings) · a website refresh, $2,100 and 26 hours (1 booking) · one venue relationship, 6 hours (3 bookings) · a past client, 1 hour (1 booking).** Required rate: **$71/hr. Next year: $2,800 and about 180 non-billable hours available for marketing.**
Produce: the CPA table · the two things you stop · the allocation of $2,800 and 180 hours** · **the three specific first actions** · and **what you would do with $0.