Connecting the Dots Between Client Expectations and Tech with Randi Bushell

Kevin Dennis (0:0.474)

All right, folks, welcome to the next episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. I am excited today to have Randy from Mary. She's the founder and CEO. And we're going to be talking connecting the dots between client expectations and tech, something I love, something that she does. So we're going to have a good, good time today talking about all this stuff. So, Randy, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got where we are today.

Randi (0:26.642)

Yeah, thanks for having me, Kevin. So it's kind of an unconventional journey here. I consider myself sadly an events industry outsider. I planned one event in my life, which was my own wedding, and that's what we're here. So, yeah. That's right. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Dennis (0:40.002)

Oh! Really? So that one wedding got you... Okay, interesting. Cool.

Randi (0:46.910)

Um, you know, throughout that process, I really struggled to understand the decisions that I needed to make specifically as it related to like the rentals decor and really everything visual, which makes a huge impact on the day of the event. Um, and so I found myself kind of cobbling it together in PowerPoint, you know, like cropping and arranging and grouping different pictures from like rental company websites and minted and Pinterest. And in that moment, I, you know, had that light bulb of, you know, there's

Kevin Dennis (1:7.422)

Oh.

Randi (1:16.846)

way.

Kevin Dennis (1:17.680)

Hehehehehehehehe

Randi (1:19.614)

I had spent my career at that point in e-commerce. So I said, okay, there's kind of these applications that exist out there for interior design, right? Where you can create a rendering of your home or your apartment and drag and drop the sofa from Pottery Barn and the table from West Elm and the bookshelf from wherever, right? And then you see it all in one picture because you're not buying everything from one place. And then you can, you know, check out. I said, why isn't there that concept in event planning where you can design every aspect of your event

furniture to the linens, lighting and florals, staging, flooring, everything, and ultimately kind of see where you can book by or rent those things kind of wrapped up in a 3D application because how else are you supposed to make these decisions if you can't see it within your venue. So that was four years ago. Here we are today.

Kevin Dennis (2:7.762)

Wow. And here we are today. So OK, so then tell us a little bit about Mary as we get going. So what does it do? Obviously, you kind of explained it, but the power behind it.

Randi (2:19.602)

Yeah, so in lieu of being able to show you, the best way of explaining it is the SIMS for planning an event.

Kevin Dennis (2:21.845)

Okay.

Kevin Dennis (2:26.230)

You know, someone else told me that and I'm like, my wife loves him, so all right, that is awesome. And then is it really easy so someone can take any venue that they're at? Is it like upload photos and then go from there? Is that kinda the process? Okay.

Randi (2:40.866)

So there's kind of three paths. The first is it might be a venue we already have in our catalog because we either work directly with that venue or a planner or designer has asked us to add it for them before. It might be a venue we don't have, in which case give us three days, we'll add it for you for free. Or it might be something that you wanna build on your own. Maybe you don't wanna wait three days or maybe it's like a private residence or a tentative event. So in any case, we can accommodate.

Kevin Dennis (3:8.134)

I'm so excited. I might even start playing with this when we're done because it sounds like something that I can eat. Because it's so true. A lot of our clients can't visualize, you know, until we show them photos from the venue and I'm like, imagine this in pink or imagine this way or imagine this without that and then this way I can start playing. I'm very excited to start using your app to be honest with you. So, all right, so we're here to talk about client expectations in tech. So how have client expectations changed over the last several years?

Randi (3:10.914)

Thank you.

Randi (3:24.898)

Oh

Randi (3:38.078)

Yeah, so going back to like the founding story of Mary, one, I was the client whose expectations were not being met because I felt like I did not understand what I wanted.

Kevin Dennis (3:45.078)

Hehehehe

Randi (3:49.074)

and I had to literally paint a picture to get there. And even then I wasn't totally sure that they got it. And so when I back up and think about this more broadly, obviously we did like a ton of research when we were starting Marion, like what pain points are we solving? A lot of this comes down to your client expects to feel heard and understood, right? In a time when they're doing this for the first and probably only time. So they don't know what they don't know, right?

Kevin Dennis (4:16.683)

Yeah.

Randi (4:19.588)

And the common language that you speak with them is what it's gonna look like. You might call something something, they don't know what that is, right? But if you guys can kind of align on, well, yes, that's what I want it to look like, you can then go speak the more technical language to whomever you need to, but they know that you got it. I think the second thing is, oftentimes, a client hires you, what, six to 12 months out?

Kevin Dennis (4:28.106)

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Dennis (4:48.254)

Yeah, that's about right.

Randi (4:49.458)

Right? And now you don't want to deal with them until what? 30 to 60 days out?

Kevin Dennis (4:55.753)

Usually two weeks, but yeah, okay, yeah, you know.

Randi (4:58.930)

And so there's this lull period where they're trying to plan things and feel like they're checking things off their list, but you just don't have the mental capacity or physical capacity to deal with them yet. And so giving them tools to kind of self-serve, but you kind of, you know, manage because you control it, will allow them to feel like they're making progress on the things that they feel like they need to make progress on, you know, in that lull period.

Kevin Dennis (5:25.498)

I get it. All right. That's amazing. So the client then could upgrade, you know, start playing in there and upgrade and say, I want now lounge furniture over here, and I want to do a flower hanging, you know, something over here, and they can then be creating more and more. And actually, probably the vendors will make more money, you know, if you think about it.

Randi (5:44.642)

Yeah. So that's the core concept, but it's up to you as their event pro, what access level you want to give them. So you can say, you know, give them full edit access, let them play around, have edit, right? Or you could say, you know, I only want to give them read only access and they can kind of like zoom around the space and walk through the rooms, but they can't add or edit things. So depending on kind of how much you trust them, or how much access you want to give them, you know, you can account for that.

Kevin Dennis (5:51.790)

Ahhhhhhh

Kevin Dennis (6:8.750)

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Randi (6:14.986)

But I also think, you know, we allow you to just like export a PDF, like send them what you're thinking and at least they know that you're on top of it.

Kevin Dennis (6:21.594)

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. All right, so tech, how can we, tech solve this? Mary's, I'm gonna say is gonna be one of them, but how can tech solve client expectations?

Randi (6:34.506)

So one thing that I hear all the time from event professionals, this is not like me inserting my opinion here, is this industry is so behind in terms of technology. I hear this all the time. And when I think about like, why? Why would an industry be quote unquote left behind?

Kevin Dennis (6:44.866)

Yep.

Randi (6:55.634)

I think there's a few reasons. I think the first is most event professionals are either solopreneurs or small businesses. And so there just isn't a big budget to invest in technology. And guess what? Technology is, is hard to build, which means it's expensive to build. So, you know, we've been tasked with building really complex technology for, you know, a pretty affordable price point. So that's one reason why I think technology hasn't really hit this

Kevin Dennis (7:8.076)

Hmm.

Kevin Dennis (7:20.713)

Mm-hmm.

Randi (7:25.668)

as it has in other industries yet, but obviously we're trying to sell for that in creative ways. I think the second thing is there needs to be a really good reason for why you use technology. And I'm sure we're going to get to this later in the episode, but you can think of tech that you adopt for your business as both horizontal or vertical. So for example, vertical technology

Kevin Dennis (7:39.084)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (7:48.206)

Oh.

Randi (7:55.428)

industry. Mary is a perfect example of that. Okay. Then you have horizontal software, which is something like Airtable or like a CRM that you might use, DubSado. Like these things were not built for the events industry, but you can use them and adopt them. The good thing about horizontal platforms is they're massive businesses because they can market to everyone. The challenging thing is you as an event professional might not.

Kevin Dennis (7:58.093)

Okay.

Kevin Dennis (8:7.866)

Mm-mm. Mm-hmm.

Randi (8:20.386)

they're not built for you, so they might feel like they're not built for you, and therefore they don't totally do what you need them to do. And so that's kind of the cross-section, I think, of, you need to be able to build technology that is affordable for event professionals because you're small businesses, and you also need to build technology that feels specific to your use cases because it is a very specific industry, very, very specific. So all that's to say, how can

Kevin Dennis (8:39.549)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (8:43.424)

Yeah.

Randi (8:49.062)

improve workflows in the wedding industry. I think that there is a proliferation of us of event tech platforms that have come to market over the past four or five years that are vertical in nature. We are designing specifically for this industry to touch upon all of the different

Kevin Dennis (9:5.812)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Randi (9:19.276)

So at the highest level of the customer journey would be like, how do you acquire customers? Right? What is the customer's experience when they first hit your website to when they sign a contract with you? And then the second part of that funnel is how do you, you know, manage those clients once they've booked you through the event? We obviously, you know, sit at the top of the funnel.

Kevin Dennis (9:19.586)

Okay.

Randi (9:37.474)

the later side were not kind of like sales and marketing focus. So think about the different touch points that are specific to weddings. There are now these different platforms that plug in along the way that can ultimately become like your tech stack for you as a wedding professional.

Kevin Dennis (9:41.005)

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (9:56.546)

Hmm. That's so many questions in my head right now after talking about that. So if I'm a business owner and I'm trying to become more techie, how do you think a good approach is like trying to implement or find tech? Cause that's my, I think my biggest pain point is like, I love this, but I wish it did that. You know, and always, you know, and.

Randi (10:0.258)

I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Randi (10:9.152)

Yes.

Randi (: 10:22

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 10:23

Like we use an inventory based software for our company because we do a lot of rentals of, you know, lighting, drapery, and decor and all that kind of stuff. So our software is great at that, but not other stuff. And so we're having to use other platforms. So how does someone go about evaluating, finding, all the above?

Randi (: 10:29

you

Randi (: 10:43

Yeah, so I think the unfortunate truth that we all just have to kind of live with is nobody is going to do everything really well

Kevin Dennis (: 10:52

Yeah, I think you're right.

Randi (: 10:55

It's just too much to build really well. You could build everything in a very shallow way, but then it's not gonna do things. If I said, we manage your CRM and your contracts and your payments and your 3D design and your this and your that, like, sure, maybe we do all those things, but then you're gonna get into each of those and be like, oh, it doesn't do so many of the detailed things that I needed to do. So let's just kind of align on that universal truth. Now, due to that,

Kevin Dennis (: 11:15

Yep, yep, yep.

Randi (: 11:23

I think the best way to kind of assess what specific platforms you need to go after are assessing what specific pain points you need to solve. So Kevin, when you think about your day to day, week to week, month to month, right? Like, what is the thing or things that feel the most painful to you? Like there's probably two or three things that jump right out.

Kevin Dennis (: 11:31

Mmm.

Kevin Dennis (: 11:43

It's probably it's just having something that automates my you know, like helping me make my day easier You know I would say like something that like with dealing with clients like we that's where we struggle with we wish we could put all our You know check-ins and all that in one thing and it automatically puts the dates in three weeks out four weeks out five You know all that stuff and we haven't been able to find anything that works for us that does that you know that would be one because I feel like we

That's something we struggle with in our company is the check-in part. And we get busy and it's like, oh, we need to be checking in. So someone told me HubSpot. I don't know. I heard it's really hard to use. So anyway.

Randi (: 12:22

And that, again, feels like something somewhat unique to the wedding industry because you have these defined planning cycles and you have different clients that hit different milestones at different times based on their event date, as opposed to if you're running, I don't know, an accounting firm. Tax season is the same tax season every year. And month close happens every month. And so there's.

Kevin Dennis (: 12:28

Yep.

Kevin Dennis (: 12:36

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 12:41

Hehehehehehe

Randi (: 12:50

Definitely CRMs out there that are specific for the events industry. I'm sure you've looked at them. What I would say is most platforms, and this by the way holds true for how we use software and tech in our life.

Kevin Dennis (: 12:56

Yeah.

Randi (13:4.670)

back of house business for Mary, right? So you mentioned HubSpot, we use HubSpot, we use Airtable. Those are kind of two platforms in that horizontal category that I mentioned before that our business really runs on. And the reason for it, like you mentioned, is how much you can automate within those tools, but it's not easy.

Kevin Dennis (: 13:10

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (: 13:16

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (: 13:22

Yeah.

Randi (: 13:23

It's a lot of if-then statements. And so you really need to break down your tasks into building blocks. So for example, you said, I'm kind of gonna make something up, but three months out from an event date, I want to send a client this document. I don't know, maybe that's reasonable. Oh.

Kevin Dennis (: 13:27

Oh

Kevin Dennis (: 13:43

Sure, that's reasonable.

Randi (: 13:46

And so what are like the building blocks of that statement? Well, the first is you need to know a client name and the event date associated with it. Right. So those are like two pieces of data that need to be stored separately in whatever system you're using. I would imagine they are here. So client name, event date, and then what is the milestone you're working towards? Well, it's like T minus three months. And then what is the trigger? The trigger is sending this email. So it's, you know, if we hit the date of T minus three months.

Kevin Dennis (: 13:53

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (14:7.970)

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (: 14:11

Mm-hmm.

Randi (: 14:15

then send this document, right? And it sounds technical, right? But at the end of the day, every platform is gonna come off the shelf with a way for you to input data. You just need to build the workflows around it using those like logical statements. Now, I'm not gonna tell you to take the easy way out, but there are a lot of consultants out there that will do this work.

Kevin Dennis (: 14:20

Yeah!

Kevin Dennis (: 14:38

Well, I was just going to say it's kind of random you said that because I just went so the software we use is called flex rental solutions and they just did they call it flex con so like a little two day training on their software and so I went to it and there was I didn't you know mind blown there's people out there that can like if you're struggling with pinpoints you could pay them you know it's like a shortcut to get what you need every day and if you know it's like how much do you value your time versus.

Randi (: 14:56

Yep.

Kevin Dennis (15:6.242)

trying to figure it out versus just paying someone to do it right for you and get what you want, you know, kind of thing. So that's, it was, when I saw that I was like, okay, I felt a little bit better about, you know, I've been on this software forever and it just, it doesn't function, the CRM side of it is horrible and the, but the inventory side is like pull sheets and I can look at, you know, October 13th and tell you how many of X, Y and Z I have available, you know, and

how many are on estimates and how many, you know, so it's pretty powerful, but you know, but it did take a lot to get to that point, it's just, you know, understanding other things, so anyway, so that's what I think a lot of it, you know.

Randi (: 15:44

Yeah. And that's a perfect example of like, it's just not going to do everything. It's really, really good at one thing that you need it to be really good at. You probably shouldn't rely on it to be really, really good at the thing that it's not totally meant to do.

Kevin Dennis (: 15:49

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 15:56

No, no, and that's, and I, yeah, and I think that's where, you know, I think we all have to live in that space. It's like, you know, like one of our clients, because I live in, you know, we're in Northern California, so we're in a little bit of the tech hub here, and one of our clients was a Salesforce person and was really pushing me to get on Salesforce, and I was like, I did the whole, like, you know, dog and pony show with them, and I went through it, and I'm like, this seems like it would take me months to implement and to set up.

Randi (: 16:15

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 16:26

And I don't have that. I don't have that time or that luxury of that time to set all this up. So I ended up obviously not doing it, but it was just like, but in the end, if you had someone in your, that worked for you or a consultant that you can hire that would set it up, get your needs, all these tools are very powerful. It's just finding them and evaluating them, I think is the biggest thing.

Randi (: 16:48

Yeah, I was actually reading an article last night, not to throw like the flavor of the week buzzword in here, but on how AI is going to change CRMs.

Kevin Dennis (: 16:55

Oh, yeah.

Randi (: 16:59

And exactly what you just said is, you know, CRMs over the past 10 years have been instrumental in, you know, sales and customer success organizations being able to like manage their tasks, but it is so cumbersome. It relies on clean information inputs. So you have people spending hours of their week, just putting information, you know, into a platform to then take actions off of and how like the

Kevin Dennis (: 17:19

Mm-hmm.

Randi (: 17:29

is going to be completely removing that data entry component. Yeah, because just based on your customer interaction, so as a lead comes in, as you send an email, as you're doing these things in your day to day, an AI model can just input that information into the CRN without you having to take the step of, I had this call, now I need to add call notes and I need to set a follow-up date for this, this and this. So there's all of this

Kevin Dennis (: 17:33

Oh really?

Kevin Dennis (: 17:49

No.

Randi (: 17:59

will be automated in your CRM eventually. This isn't gonna happen tomorrow, but the point is it becomes much less cumbersome to manage your customer data because it's taking cues off of the activities that are happening in your day-to-day business.

Kevin Dennis (18:5.077)

No.

Kevin Dennis (: 18:14

Well, and something like that will probably in the end make it affordable for small mom and pop type businesses to have something very powerful at their fingertips. So.

Randi (: 18:24

Yeah, yeah. And you can also think about the most basic form of a CRM, because that's what we're talking about, is an Excel spreadsheet or a Google Doc. You can do a lot with a Google Doc. And then taking it a step.

Kevin Dennis (: 18:32

It really is, yeah.

Yeah.

Randi (: 18:39

above that would be something like Airtable, you know, that you can run automations off of. And then a step above that is HubSpot, which you can then run workflows off of, and that integrates with your emails and SMS. And then the step above that is like a Salesforce enterprise deal.

Kevin Dennis (: 18:42

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 18:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wasn't ready for Salesforce. It's a lot, yeah. It was, you know, if I had 40 salespeople and we're managing, you know, millions of dollars of, you know, probably, yeah, yeah. We'll get there someday, someday. All right, so where do we, so I'm a business, do I make time for this? You know, like, do I?

Randi (: 18:57

a lot.

Randi (19:7.126)

There's a time in a piece.

Kevin Dennis (: 19:19

Do you recommend once a month, evaluate tech? Do I evaluate it every year, every quarter? How often should I be looking at my tech, or my pinpoints, I guess?

Randi (: 19:31

So I recommend twice a year. And it's interesting because we see this in our data is that twice a year in this industry correlates with downtime you have between peak seasons. So use the time you have. If you're in the southern states, it's probably right now.

Kevin Dennis (: 19:33

Okay.

Kevin Dennis (: 19:43

Ah, okay.

Kevin Dennis (: 19:50

Yeah, because it's hot.

Randi (: 19:51

They're a little bit later and then kind of across the board, it'll be Q4. And that's when we see an influx of, you know, leads coming in contracts going out. Because guess what? When you're in May, June, you don't have time to evaluate. And even if you do have time to evaluate, you're certainly not changing your processes in the middle of peak season. So my recommendation is twice a year, sit down.

Kevin Dennis (: 19:55

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 20:10

No.

Randi (: 20:13

gather information from your team if you have one, or if it's just you, obviously, you're doing it day in, day out, so you know. What is taking you the most time? What is causing you the most headache?

Kevin Dennis (: 20:25

Mmm.

Randi (: 20:26

And what do you dread doing the most? Those are kind of the three variables that I evaluate my time and our tech tools on. And then based on that, I recommend, this is by the way, like my personal philosophy, there's no data behind this. My personal philosophy is you should only ever try to reevaluate two of those processes at a time.

Kevin Dennis (: 20:48

Oh, okay.

Randi (: 20:49

Try to boil the ocean and change every part of your process at the same time. First of all, you lose the ability to control for is this helping or not? Because if you change all of your processes, all of your systems, and one of them is really messing with how things are working, it might feel like everything is broken when that's not. Well, I would say yes.

Kevin Dennis (21:8.247)

Uh, okay, that's good advice. Good advice.

Randi (: 21:11

So I would recommend evaluating and only changing kind of like one to two things at once. One, because if you do more than that, you're gonna feel overwhelmed. Two, because if you do more than that, it's hard to evaluate, you know, did the changes you made work?

Kevin Dennis (: 21:25

Yeah, yeah, no, that's... Yeah, cause I don't know. The way I look at it, I'm like, you're right. It could get really overwhelming. And then you're like, I don't wanna do this. I'm going back to the old way I did it. And then the old way is archaic and taking you back to the Stone Ages, which was probably Stone Ages in tech is probably what? 10 years ago. So yeah.

Randi (: 21:44

Yeah. Yeah, and you know, taking from your question of like, well, how do you evaluate it, right? So, you know, first, get yourself, start evaluating it in the right time of year. Second of all, don't evaluate too many things at once. Third, most platforms at this point have some sort of a free trial. And so you can do it on your own time, and I think that that's huge. And that's pretty new in the past five years.

Kevin Dennis (22:4.138)

Yeah, okay.

Randi (: 22:13

You used to have to get on a call with a salesperson every time. As someone who demos our product all the time, like I get that not everybody wants to hop on a call. There you know, it's funny. There's a percentage of the population who would never do a free trial and expects to have like the one to one demo. I need to ask questions, you know, hold my hand. But then there's also a percentage of the population that's like, I never want to talk to you. Like, please don't call me. Don't email me. I just want to use the product.

Kevin Dennis (: 22:18

Yeah.

Hehehehehehe

Kevin Dennis (: 22:41

It's funny, but that can be said almost in the wedding industry as well, that we have clients that need their hand held all the way through it, and there's clients that don't bug me, just do what I need you to do and show up on the day of my wedding and thank you very much kind of thing. So anyway, I don't think we're that far. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

Randi (: 22:54

Thanks.

Randi (23:1.182)

Yeah, see you back with us.

Kevin Dennis (23:5.674)

All right, so we've evaluated our tech. We found our pain points. We now know we should be evaluating every six months. So what are some of, you know, you also run a business, even though you don't plan events, like you said, you feel like an outsider, but we welcome you into our little inner circle. But what are some of the like favorite apps or software or things that you use to run your business?

Randi (: 23:27

Yeah, so I mentioned two of them already, which is hub.

Kevin Dennis (: 23:30

And air table, I'm gonna say air table people are just, it's blowing up and it's the power behind that thing is huge right now. It's a huge, I feel like that thing has really taken off in the last several years. Yeah.

Randi (: 23:41

It's so powerful. Because again, it just allows you to break things down into those building blocks and then you can do like an infinite amount of things with them. So Airtable and HubSpot, I'd say, you know, if either of those platforms went down, we'd be in trouble. And then another one, you know, we have a pretty small, small team. We're like 12 people, but we're all remote.

Kevin Dennis (: 23:49

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 23:56

Ha ha ha!

Kevin Dennis (24:4.990)

Okay.

Randi (24:5.670)

And so critical for us is Slack, which is basically like an instant message platform we use all day, every day. Um, and you know, if you have team members, you know, in the field or, or wherever, like, you know, I'm sure you guys have communication that you use.

Kevin Dennis (: 24:10

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 24:13

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Kevin Dennis (: 24:22

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 24:26

That's a huge one. No, because you got to be able to talk to your people, and especially when the rubber hits the road, so to speak. So, yeah. All right, so now we've had the tech. So how do we not lose the personal touch by using tech?

Randi (: 24:34

So to speak.

Randi (: 24:44

I love this question because I hate that there's this like notion of it's one or the other. And it's also a way by the way, you might have noticed that I use the word like automated in air quotes because I also hate the word automated. Anyways, I think that if tech is used in the right way, things actually feel more personal.

Kevin Dennis (: 24:49

Okay.

Kevin Dennis (: 24:55

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (25:6.942)

In what way? Just curious.

Randi (25:7.978)

Yeah. So let's use the most black and white example. Going back to the example of your couples want to talk to you six months out, and you're just like, I cannot deal with you for another five months. Now imagine.

Kevin Dennis (: 25:10

Okay.

Randi (: 25:24

if from the day they signed a contract you had this magical workflow, which by the way I'm happy to work with you and Airtable are about to build, of you know the different milestones that happen you know at this month, this week, etc.

they would on day one have a roadmap of what they can expect from you, and therefore they won't expect any more or any less, and they'll know what is expected of them at certain times. And so even though you're not gonna talk to them for many, many months, the expectations are set, and they have that roadmap, and they know what to expect, and they feel like you're taking care of them, even though it's very passive. So tech is what allows you to give a personalized touch in a fairly passive way.

Kevin Dennis (: 25:47

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (26:5.270)

That's a good way. Yeah. Well, and that and then I think that's a good way to look at it is that their needs are being taken care of when we're not, you know, you know, wanting to talk to them or wanting, you know, don't have time for them at that point. They're still feel connected to us, you know, and they feel like their money is not just I mean, that's what a lot of people in our industry, they are clients will say, I just feel like I'm giving you guys all this money and I just hope it works, you know, because

We're so tuned as we pay for, you know, we go to the restaurant, we pay for our meal after we eat it, you know, kind of thing. So it's a little, it's totally different in our way. So anyway.

Randi (: 26:43

Yeah, and not to plug Mary, but that's exactly what we're trying to solve for. You can show your client exactly what it is going to look like before the day of the event. So they will trust you. They will have the confidence in that.

Kevin Dennis (: 26:56

I you've got me hooked because I'm when I evaluate my software in a few months from now I'm I think I think I'm gonna become a client is what is what I'm trying to tell you. So, alright There we go. I will definitely do that. Um Advice so on implementing it so like how long do you feel? We're trying new tech, you know, we do we evaluate it at six months How long do you feel you give it until you know, it's not working?

Randi (27:1.886)

and

Randi (27:6.548)

Go call me a demo.

Kevin Dennis (: 27:24

Is there like a magical number there? Yeah!

Randi (: 27:27

Can I ask you a question? When you hire a new employee, how long do you think it takes to assess if it's working or not?

Kevin Dennis (: 27:35

I usually can tell what depends on the. Usually within a couple weeks you can you can see if yeah I can figure it out pretty. I can sometimes I'll hire someone in within like 48 hours sometimes I'll be like then I you know they're not for us but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt because I'm old and grumpy is what I'm told by some of my staff. So being older and grumpier I just have expectations and I need people to you know.

Randi (: 27:38

Thank you.

Randi (: 27:42

Really?

Kevin Dennis (28:4.886)

Does that make sense? So.

Randi (28:4.894)

Yeah, okay, so I agree with you that within a few days, you can see red flags, right? This might not be a good fit.

Kevin Dennis (28:9.888)

Yeah.

Randi (: 28:12

But you said you give people benefit as do I. I think it really takes three months to know if someone can turn it around, right? So there might be red flags, but I give them like, okay, the first month is we're just getting to know each other. Like, let's see kind of how you can ingest and intake all the information I'm throwing at you and just like learn the company. And then month two is when I can really see like, how are they operating on their own? And if it's not working out, month three is the month that they can have to turn it around. And if they don't turn around, like three, like we're done.

Kevin Dennis (: 28:17

Okay.

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 28:40

Yeah.

Randi (: 28:42

that same process to technology.

Kevin Dennis (: 28:44

You're nicer than I am. Or maybe you have more patience than I do.

Randi (: 28:50

You know what I think it is too, you spend so much time hiring people that you want it to work out. And it's the same thing with her, right? You spend so much time evaluating it. It's like, I went through this whole process. I obviously saw something in the product that I thought would work for us. Let me give it a shot. Now, that also is a little bit different in the events industry because what I always say with Mary is give us one event, right? Just plan one event on Mary and you should be good to go.

Kevin Dennis (: 28:55

Yeah, no, that's true.

Randi (: 29:19

whether that means I'm designing an event in an hour and you have an hour or I come back to Mary several times throughout the event. But the point is the common denominator there is a single event as opposed to like a time duration. But my personal theory is give it three months to really work through the kinks and work it into your system because by the way, the first way that you implement it, you're not done. That's a starting point and you need to continue to come back to it and refine things.

Kevin Dennis (: 29:33

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 29:44

Yeah.

Randi (: 29:49

And that's how, by the way, we built software, is you launch something, you see how people are using it, you iterate on it, you make changes, et cetera. When we implement a new process at Marriott, it's the same thing I have to say to my team all the time. This document is a living, breathing document. This can and should change because we are growing as a business and things should always change.

Kevin Dennis (: 30:13

Well, and the one thing like just from that software, you know, little retreat thing that I went to for a couple of days, the, I, the one thing that impressed me is they listened to what we had to say and, and what our pinpoints using the software was. And they were, they're like, all right, we can, we can actually make that change and we could do this. And, and, and so, so that way, I feel like it's always going to evolve, which probably is what you're, you know, like for your team.

You have a product now, but that doesn't mean that's what it's going to be two years from now. It's constantly evolving and getting better and probably through client feedback.

Randi (: 30:45

Oh yeah.

Randi (: 30:48

for you.

Randi (: 30:52

I mean, I'm like mortified when I think about what the product was four years ago, right? But you gotta launch with something and then you just keep making a bet.

Kevin Dennis (31:0.850)

Yeah, I get it. I totally I look back the other day we found a box of photos and it was like from when we first started and I was like, oh my god, we were horrible. How did how did people give us money to do that? So alright, and then one more thing on tech that I guess I think people really miss the boat is

Randi (: 31:10

I'm sorry.

Randi (: 31:14

You gotta start somewhere.

Kevin Dennis (: 31:24

you're gonna have to invest money into tech. And that's what I think a lot of people forget is because they're like, oh, I found this free piece of software. It's probably not, it's not doing what you need to do. You know, like time is money and you have to invest to save that. I mean, like, do you agree? I mean, well, obviously you agree because you want me to spend money. Yeah.

Randi (: 31:43

Yeah. I mean, I mean, to an extent, right? Like, um, there's a reason why Salesforce is a lot more expensive than HubSpot and, you know, therefore people will fall into one bucket or the other. But I think any software that's free, there's either a reason why it's free or guess what? They're selling your data. So if you're okay with that, cool. Um, but you have to value your time.

Kevin Dennis (: 31:51

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (32:1.389)

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (32:8.365)

Yeah.

Randi (32:8.466)

And this is something that I, as an entrepreneur, struggled with a little bit more so in hiring people than...

evaluating software is, you know, well, I can just do it myself. It's like, well, is that a good use of my 10 hours a week to be manually inputting bills into QuickBooks or whatever it is? Right. And so both in terms of, you know, hiring people and think of like adding tech as like hiring someone. Right. It's going to like amplify your productivity. How how much time are you spending on it? And what is the value of your time?

Kevin Dennis (: 32:18

Mmm.

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 32:42

Yeah, no, and I think that's the biggest thing people have to really evaluate is because your time is money. I remember when I'm so old that I used to type contracts out for clients, and that's how long ago. We had a printed document and I would type there, that's how long I've been doing this. I'll date myself right there. But now it's just like we boom and drop clients' data in. Yep, yep.

Randi (33:4.862)

Yeah.

Randi (33:9.803)

Use template, drag, drop, signature.

Kevin Dennis (: 33:12

Yep, yep, and send out for a signature. And it's like, we used to send out the contract and we'd be excited in two weeks from that. We'd get a check back. And now it's like, usually within hours, we're getting contract signed, paid, done. The world has changed a long way. And so I guess one more tech thing. AI is the big thing. But is there anything else big coming in the tech world that you see coming?

Randi (: 33:29

Yeah.

Randi (: 33:40

So I think the other big news, which is like old new news, but it was with the launch of, you know, Apple's new augmented reality and mixed reality glasses. Now the reason why I say it's old new is because 2017 was the first like big gold rush to VR and AR, right? Nothing really came of it. It did.

Kevin Dennis (: 33:59

No, it really didn't. Other than cool games, video games and stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Randi (34:3.170)

Yeah, like, cool, I can put these Oculus goggles on at some immersive experience and then go home and never think about it again. And my perspective on this is there hasn't been mass adoption of the hardware.

Kevin Dennis (34:9.282)

Yeah.

Randi (: 34:20

And so, you know, what are we all doing all day and all night? We're sitting either at a desk or on our couch with a laptop or a tablet. And so the technology that people have adopted today is technology that has been enabled by the devices that we're on, or obviously on your phone, right? How do we get that? And so I think that has really been what's holding people back, because like what is a really valid use case for why I would go spend $300 on a pair of goggles and own another device and put those on and switch, et cetera.

Kevin Dennis (: 34:27

Mm-hmm.

Kevin Dennis (: 34:36

Yeah.

Randi (: 34:49

So I think that what hopefully now comes from this, because this is the world that we play in, is immersive technology, is as more kind of streamlined, less expensive, less friction-filled devices come out to help people kind of bridge the physical and digital space, hopefully this will now kind of become the error of mass consumer adoption there.

Kevin Dennis (: 35:14

Oh wow, that's amazing. So like we can put clients in goggles and just bring them into their space and design in the space with them watching.

Randi (: 35:24

I think a lot of it is actually gonna come on here. Sorry, that's my daughter and my dog.

Kevin Dennis (: 35:26

You think so? That's a done? I got all kinds of stuff on here too.

Randi (: 35:32

Yeah, I think that the biggest issue is having to purchase and just have and own like a whole other device. Now, obviously, that's like what Apple just unveiled, but I think that...

Spatial computing is coming a long way. Like, okay, think about what we do. You can now go into a venue and use your phone and scan it, right? You get like pretty accurate measurements and we can use that to make a 3D model off of it. You can now take a picture of your mug and there's AI tools that will translate that into a 3D model. So I think that...

Kevin Dennis (: 35:52

Okay.

Kevin Dennis (: 35:55

Yeah.

Randi (: 36:15

I get excited by tech trends that existed five, eight years ago that were just hype and there wasn't really a valid use case. But now with the improvement in hardware, it just makes more sense for it to become mass adopted and it becomes more realistic as opposed to just something that's cool. And there's cool games that you can play on it.

Kevin Dennis (: 36:23

Oh.

Kevin Dennis (: 36:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's almost like when the iPhone came out, everyone's like, eh, and then now it's like, it always blows my mind when someone doesn't have an iPhone because I feel like that's what the world, we all have iPhones, we're all Apple people, except for the people that hate Apple, so anyway.

Randi (: 36:56

Yeah, yeah. And I think just with AI, like, I kind of rolled my eyes at it because I just feel like people are using it as such a buzzword right now. And like, again, it's not new, right? Like, there's been language learning models, like, for years. And what chat GPT is built on and everything, like, these models have existed for years because they've been training. So it's not new, but it's now becoming widely adopted. And so that's why it feels new.

Kevin Dennis (: 37:11

I know.

Kevin Dennis (: 37:23

Yeah, well, and I, well, and probably media, the news is really, you know, making people, you know, getting you afraid and scared and whatnot, you know. It's like even like, like I use an app called Grammarly a lot. And I've been, yeah, no, I've been using that forever. And it's, and I'll be honest, it's gotten better over the years. And now it, it works in my Apple Mail and it works on my phone and it works everywhere, you know, you know, and I always like getting.

Randi (: 37:36

Yeah, yeah, not you, not you. Yeah.

Randi (: 37:50

It will, AI will be used to improve the existing apps that you use. Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 37:54

Yeah, period. And not take over the world like it says it's gonna be. All right, anything else that I, did I miss anything or do I think we did a good job? Did you? I think we hit it all too, so. All right, so how do we connect with you and how do we get a demo of Mary and all the above?

Randi (38:7.222)

You heard it all.

Randi (: 38:19

Yeah, so you can find us on Instagram. It's just at Mary M-E-R-R-I. Our website is bemerry.com, B-E-M-E-R-R-I.com. And then you can always email me, randy at bemerry.com.

Kevin Dennis (: 38:32

Well, look at this. We got the CEO's email out there. So all right. And then so I always ask all my clients, I'm calling you a client, podcast guests, what is your favorite part of a wedding? Which is probably gonna be different because you said you've only planned one wedding. So it's always interesting to me to hear what everyone likes about a wedding.

Randi (: 38:35

I'm going to go to bed.

Randi (: 38:56

Okay, so I have one obvious answer and one less obvious answer. The obvious answer, which is probably cheesy, is the vows. Um, I think, yeah, I think when people write their own vows, it just makes it so much more.

Kevin Dennis (39:2.890)

Yeah, no, that's not I some people love that part

Kevin Dennis (39:9.246)

It's so personal. I, like I said, I find myself every once in a while tearing my eye when you hear some of this stuff.

Randi (: 39:14

Yeah, you're kind of like inviting everyone, you know, into the ceremony at that point. So love that on a personal level. Thank you. The other thing that I love is seeing the different event flows.

Kevin Dennis (: 39:21

I don't think that's cheesy, so.

Kevin Dennis (: 39:29

Oh!

Randi (: 39:30

how people choose, like I think it's very like based on your personality. And you would know more about this than I do, but you know at our wedding for example, it was really important to us. We wanted like everyone on the dance floor the whole time. Like we just wanted to be like a big party and so we you know had everyone went upstairs from cocktail hour and immediately started dancing. We came in and then they sat down for first course and then you danced and then we had an entree. So it wasn't like you eat a full three course meal

Kevin Dennis (: 39:42

Yeah.

Randi (: 39:59

to be a party the whole time. And then you go to other people's weddings and it's just a totally different format and I think it just speaks to the type of event that you want to have, which also just speaks to the type of person you are and it's just interesting how that comes out.

Kevin Dennis (: 40:15

And that's a great way of looking at it, because I always say, because you obviously are from the East Coast if that's the type of wedding you had, and us here on the West Coast, we're boring. We sit, we don't, if you try to... Yeah, 100% it is, because if you try to do that here, because a lot of the wedding blogs and information is very East Coast biased, because that's where everything's being written, and you know, it's very East Coast biased. So on the West Coast, you'll get a bride that goes...

Randi (: 40:25

I didn't know that it was geo-based at all. Like, I didn't know that.

Kevin Dennis (: 40:44

Did you know that people can dance at this time and that time? I'm like, yeah. They're like, we want to do it. I'm like, it's not going to work. I'm like, unless you have people that are going to bum rush the dance floor and get it going, everyone's like going to look at you like, no, we sit, we eat dinner, and then we dance after dinner. That's how we do it here. But a really good friend of mine is a florist here locally, but grew up out in Jersey and got married in Rhode Island. And I got to experience that. And it

I'll be honest with you, you guys do it right, we do it wrong. Because it's so much more fun. Because we're up, we're dancing, you're back, and it's more social, it's more interactive, everyone's talking. I mean, and it didn't feel like the wedding went on forever. Which sometimes I think when, you know, like we'll do a traditional like 12 course Chinese banquet wedding and dinner takes two and a half, three, you know, but if you were up in between, it would feel better.

Randi (: 41:27

Great.

Randi (: 41:41

We had so many people come up to us and say like, this format is amazing, like, you know, I wish we had done this and we didn't know that wasn't really that common in other places, you know.

Kevin Dennis (: 41:46

Hehe.

Kevin Dennis (: 41:52

Yeah, yeah, no, you're on to something. It's funny too, I will say my wife and I will be married 14 years this year, and when we got married on New Year's Eve, and we wanted drunk food because we went past midnight. Around here, weddings usually end 10, 11 o'clock, very normal, we went past midnight because we wanted to ring in the new year, and so we did pizza, popcorn, and a bunch of stuff, it was before the late night snack trend, and I still have people to this day go.

Randi (42:4.683)

Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 42:19

I had so much fun, and food just kept coming, and now, but now, you go to a wedding now, and that's pretty common. You know, like, you know, it just keeps coming.

Randi (: 42:29

We're not in New York. We catered in Shake Shack for our after-party. Yeah.

Kevin Dennis (: 42:34

Ooh, I love Shake Shack. I just, I went to the Knot Gala and stayed at the hotel that was right across the street from Shake Shack and I was like, I ate Shake Shack. We don't, it's not very, they're around here now. They're starting to get more popular, but where I live there's not a Shake Shack close. So it's always when I travel kind of thing, I get excited that there's a Shake Shack, so.

Randi (: 42:55

So good.

Kevin Dennis (: 42:56

It's the best, I will agree with you on that. Alright, Randy, thank you so much for being here, sharing all your information about tech. I mean, there's so much to evaluate, so much that we need to, I think, if you think tech a couple times a year, I think you'll do your business well. Anyway, thank you so much for being here, we appreciate your time.

Randi (: 43:20

Thanks, Kevin.

Kevin Dennis (: 43:22

Ehhhhhh...