Tech Tools Every Wedding Pro Needs: Streamline Your Business Today!
Are you using technology to its full potential in your event business? Or are you letting outdated habits slow you down? It’s time to upgrade your workflow, cut out inefficiencies, and embrace the apps that can streamline your day-to-day operations.
Let’s be real—wedding professionals are constantly juggling multiple tasks. From managing client communications to organizing schedules and keeping track of contracts, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But the right tech can simplify your life, boost your efficiency, and even help you reclaim precious hours each week.
I’ve been in this industry long enough to see how technology has completely transformed the way we work. Gone are the days of endless email back-and-forths just to set a meeting, and no more massive binders full of paper contracts! Instead, we now have apps that keep us connected, organized, and in control of our businesses.
One of the biggest game-changers? A proper project management system. Whether it’s a notes app for jotting down quick thoughts or a full-scale CRM like Dubsado, having an organized hub for your workflow can save you hours of frustration. And if you’re not regularly cleaning up your apps and updating your tech, you’re probably holding on to digital clutter that slows you down. Trust me, a quick "app cleanse" every couple of months will keep your devices running smoothly and your mind clear.
And let’s talk about client communication. If you’re still playing email tag to schedule meetings, it’s time to switch to a scheduling tool like Acuity. It eliminates the back-and-forth and lets clients book meetings at their convenience—while you maintain control over your availability.
Even payroll and staff management have become easier thanks to apps like When I Work, which lets your team clock in and out digitally. No more messy spreadsheets or time-consuming manual calculations! And for those of us who travel for work, a trip-planning app like TripIt is an absolute lifesaver.
At the end of the day, leveraging the right technology isn’t about replacing human connection—it’s about making space for more of it. The less time you spend on administrative chaos, the more time you have to focus on what truly matters: delivering incredible events and experiences for your clients.
Highlights:
- Why every event pro needs to regularly clean up unused apps and update their tech
- The must-have apps for managing tasks, client communication, and contracts
- How a CRM like Dubsado can save you up to 10 hours a week
- The power of scheduling tools like Acuity to set boundaries and streamline bookings
- Using When I Work for seamless team management and payroll processing
- Travel smarter with TripIt, an app that keeps all your trip details in one place
We want to hear from you! What are your go-to apps for running your wedding business? Drop a comment, share your favorites, and don’t forget to leave us a rating and review. Your feedback helps us keep bringing you valuable content. Until next time, keep innovating and making wedding magic happen!
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Transcript
Kevin Dennis (0:0.994)
All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. We're going to take two, Kerry, because of our friend August playing with her microphone. Are you adjusted? All right. Are we ready? All right. All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. Today, I have my co-host on my other podcast, Now That I'm Gage, How Do I Get Married, August Yoker with me. Did I say it right? Frick yeah.
August Yocher (0:7.892)
Sorry, I forgot to put it up. You can start over. Yeah, go ahead.
August Yocher (0:28.044)
Hello? Yes, you did. Good job. Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (0:30.934)
Eventually, I'm gonna I'm gonna get it right eventually But anyway August is with us August is a brand new manager for fantasy sound event services and Is my co-host on like I said now that I'm engaged. How do I get married? But today she's gonna be here because she's kind of interviewing me and we're gonna be talking about taking advantage of tech and Downloading the update your event company needs so I talk a lot I've been doing this now for a long time But I talk a lot about apps when I go out on the national stage there
And so we felt January, February, beginning of the year is a good time to be talking about getting organized and getting ready to go. So August, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself before we jump in so they know who you are.
August Yocher (1:18.516)
Yes, absolutely. Well, like Kevin said, I work alongside him at Fantasy Sound Event Services, and I do help with some of the Wedding IQ, Mind Your Wedding business stuff as well. But I think I'm hitting what, like eight, nine months now with you guys, something like that.
Kevin Dennis (1:39.288)
Feels like you've been here forever.
August Yocher (1:41.274)
Oh, that's sweet. No, it honestly feels like that too. I can't imagine a time where I haven't been with you guys, but it's been a fun journey and marketing and social media has been a hobby of mine in the past and now it's something I get to do every day and that's really exciting for me. Get to stretch my creative brain and thoughts a lot more. So happy to be on here. Happy to talk about tech and...
Kevin Dennis (1:48.130)
That's right.
August Yocher (2:7.776)
really just New Year's resolutions in general, too. You know, I feel like I've been sticking with mine. And now as we're recording this, we're towards the end of January. So I'm hoping that it just, you know, sets a good tone for the rest of the year. But I think I would like to learn some more about these apps, too, because I think when it comes to my phone and just tech in general, I can be a bit lost. And I think some organization would be helpful.
Kevin Dennis (2:36.955)
Well, let this old guy teach you a little bit about tech because really it should be the other way around but anyway, alright, so So I'm a big believer So, you know you got it. I have a saying keep calm. There's an app for that so the reason why I say that is because
August Yocher (2:40.203)
Yes.
Yes.
Kevin Dennis (2:54.670)
A lot of times people go, I wish an app did this, or I wish an app did that. So the biggest thing I'm going to tell you is your friend right now is Google and YouTube, and go out there and just start asking the question, is there an app that does this? Is there an app that does that? Because nine times out of 10, you're going to find the app. Because I don't know if you knew this August. Did you know that there's over 5 and 1 million apps available out there?
August Yocher (3:9.634)
Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (3:21.484)
That's wild, actually. Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (3:23.768)
So yeah, so Google Play Store has a little over three million, and it's because they'll let anyone have an app. But Apple's a little bit more judgy with the apps, so they have a little over two million. And then if you put Amazon App Store has a little over a half a million apps.
So if you add them up, it's a little over five and a half million apps that are available out there right now. my point in telling you that is there really is an app for almost anything. And normally when I do my presentation, I will do the countdown to Christmas. I will, because there's literally an app that will count you down to Christmas. that's, yeah. Yeah.
August Yocher (3:58.786)
Mm.
Yeah, I had one of those, it just counted dates down, you know, or like up if you had like an anniversary or something like that.
Kevin Dennis (4:10.626)
but literally I found an app that just counts you down to Christmas. there are, as you mentioned, there's better apps. Yeah, better apps so where you can go count me down to my vacation, count me down to, you know, whatever, you know, my birthday, yeah, anything, you name it, you can put in there. So.
August Yocher (4:15.679)
It's cute.
August Yocher (4:23.266)
Tax day.
August Yocher (4:27.606)
Well, and if you can't find the app, maybe that's your next multi-million dollar idea.
Kevin Dennis (4:32.435)
There you go. We'll get there. So, all right. So one of the things, and when I'm speaking, I always ask is, you know, when was the last time you sanitized, cleaned out the apps that you're not using? So August, I'm going to ask you that. When was the last time you cleaned out the apps in your phone, your iPad that you're not using?
August Yocher (4:53.614)
I mean, I think it's like three years. It could be more than that. I like to do the cute little widgets on my phone, and I know it's been at least four years since I updated that. So who knows? Many years it's been since I've sanitized my phone.
Kevin Dennis (5:12.082)
So I'm gonna tell you wrong answer so I'm a big believer because the next question I usually ask is August or I'll ask the crowd too is like Do you have your phone set to automatically update so August do you have your phone set to automatically update? Okay, so two things you're doing wrong there. I'm a big believer One you need to be sanitizing your phone iPads at least every other month
August Yocher (5:27.584)
Yes, I do.
August Yocher (5:31.402)
Whoa.
Kevin Dennis (5:39.286)
and get just get the because some of these apps track you whether you know they do or not or whether and some of them are very sneaky about how they put it in there how they're tracking what you're doing so get you know if you're not using an app get it out of there but also with the update this is something where i think a lot of people um go wrong and they just automatically update next thing you know they go look for an app and it it's not the same color the icon of it is not the same color that it used to be yep or
August Yocher (5:40.066)
Mmm.
August Yocher (5:50.838)
Mmm.
August Yocher (6:5.611)
Right.
Kevin Dennis (6:8.116)
Or you go open an app and you're like, why is it not doing what I want it to do? The functionality of the app is totally wrong. So I'm a big believer you need to read the notes that are the developer notes when you go to update. And I know it's kind of a pain in the butt to go through. So what I normally do is I don't have my phone set to update or my iPad set to update. But what I do is when it like about maybe
August Yocher (6:20.834)
Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (6:33.974)
Once a week, I'll go in and let my phone or if I see the little numbers really adding up there because it drives me nuts the numbers on you know on the on the on the apps. So yeah, yeah, so I'm like, oh crap. I need to go in there. So what I do is I go through and just kind of read the developer updates and a night and sometimes I'll find whoa, I haven't used this app in a long time. I need to delete it. So I'll go delete the app before it updates, you know, so when it's gone, but the other thing is I'll go in there and
August Yocher (6:41.866)
The update thing, yeah.
August Yocher (6:59.233)
Hmm.
Kevin Dennis (7:2.966)
Most of the times it's like, just did minor tweaking or just fix the bugs or they all, know, like Facebook, Instagram, some of these bigger apps, they're updating almost two to three times a week, you know? Yeah, so they're really out there updating. So, but Instagram and, you know, a majority of the time it's just bugs and, you know, fixing little tweaks here and there. But sometimes it's like, hey, we're going to change something. What was the big thing they're doing now is the
August Yocher (7:16.022)
Wow.
August Yocher (7:31.582)
just gonna bring that up. My current bone to pick with Instagram is their switch from the square grid post to rectangle because if you're a social media manager or just like a good aesthetic, it's ruining all of my graphics on the page. Everything's out of whack and it's sending me into a spiral but we'll uh we'll talk about that another day. But it would have been nice to read about that beforehand before it just
Kevin Dennis (7:32.758)
Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (7:56.236)
Yeah, we can.
August Yocher (8:0.524)
jumped me basically.
Kevin Dennis (8:2.080)
Well, but if you might have caught it in the update is the point. So you would have caught it, you know, that they because usually they'll put in there, this is what we're doing in this, you know, and sometimes to an Apple update and you're like, I don't really like this app anymore. So, you know, back to the five and a half million, you could probably find an app that you, you know, might like better. So, you know, and I always joke to when I'm speaking is that I'm very brand loyal. So I'm also very loyal to my apps. So I stick it.
August Yocher (8:5.494)
Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (8:21.932)
Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (8:30.582)
with them as long as I can, then eventually I do break up with them if I find something better.
August Yocher (8:36.354)
You are very brand loyal. would say one of the most brand loyal people I know. And you're very vocal about it, too. So.
Kevin Dennis (8:41.580)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think of three brands off the top for me. I was going to see if you can guess them.
August Yocher (8:49.674)
Am I gonna guess them? Yeah. I assume Apple. Mercedes. Was that one of them? Oh. I feel like it has to be like a clothing brand. No. I don't know about the third one.
Kevin Dennis (8:55.126)
Well, duh.
Yep, one more. Yes.
Kevin Dennis (9:6.357)
No?
August Yocher (9:13.532)
Oh, Southwest, I do know that one. Kevin was putting his arms up like an airplane. Yeah, no, I should have guessed that one. mean, I use it. And it's like, I think all three of those are in your Instagram bio too, so you're just like...
Kevin Dennis (9:21.692)
I am.
Kevin Dennis (9:28.468)
I don't have Mercedes because I feel like it's a little pretentious, but I do love my Mercedes cars. I'm very I will be honest with you. I have purchased many cars over my life and there is nothing like purchasing a Mercedes Benz. I'm and with that said, Mercedes doesn't cost that much more than a Honda or Toyota. You know, they do. Obviously, Mercedes does have their 200, 300, 400 thousand dollar cars. But a lot of a lot of their cars are relatively right around the press.
August Yocher (9:33.834)
No, yeah.
August Yocher (9:42.102)
Hmm.
August Yocher (9:53.206)
Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (9:57.912)
price range of a nice Honda, you know, but you know, you just get, yeah, which is, yeah, same thing, but it's a good brand. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes it's better to invest a few thousand dollars more to have something better. But anyway, we digress. Yeah, not an ad. All right, so now when we're going through, I'm a big believer you must have these bare-bow minimum apps on your phone. Do you know what they are?
August Yocher (10:1.538)
I know I have a rival, I have an Audi, but I love my Audi.
August Yocher (:Yeah. Hashtag not an ad.
August Yocher (:Okay. I guess it's kind of a broad question, like just to help with productivity or what's the goal of having these apps?
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, so think more running your side of your business. Yeah.
August Yocher (:side of your business. I mean, I feel like a reminder app is probably helpful.
Kevin Dennis (:Okay, so so very good. So you need some kind of project management Some kind of like like for us we've been using Yeah, to do ist is what we've been using for us that what we keep track of everything We're in the we're exploring the dub. Sado world are ever since wedding mba So I would imagine once we really do get dub. Sado up and running that'll be gone because that has that functionality Inside of an app. So that's another thing to think about too is sometimes
August Yocher (:calendar.
Kevin Dennis (:You know, you might have five apps, but you might be able to find one app that does all five things. So that's something else to think about. But I'm a big believer you need a notes app because the majority of us in the, you know, the event wedding world, we. Well, but we have ADHD and if we think of something and we don't write it down, you you're a mess. So going back, going back to brand loyal, I was an Evernote.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
August Yocher (:I live in my notes.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:I was a die-hard Evernote person to the point where I had an Evernote scanner that I still use to this day But I even though I don't use the app anymore but I had Also, I was such a super user of Evernote that they actually sent me a t-shirt in the mail one day It actually it actually made my day. I thought it was I thought I arrived but So what happened with Evernote is that they ended up getting a new ownership?
August Yocher (:Hmm.
August Yocher (12:3.678)
Wow.
Kevin Dennis (:And they went in and changed so much of the functionality and even the price. Like they literally almost doubled the price that I was paying in one year. And so I was like, you know what? I'm not going to do this. And you know what I was able to do is being an Apple person. I was able to figure out that Apple did almost everything that I was using functionality wise at Evernote. And so I just switched to the notes app and I've never looked back. But you have to have somewhere.
that you can jot down a note. So another one is like OneNote. Microsoft has OneNote. So there's all kinds of different notes out there. You have to have something where you can write down your thoughts or ideas or you may be on a site survey and go, someone goes, hey, can you follow up with me on that? Just jot it down because if you don't, we have those squirrel brains and we will definitely forget, don't you think?
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (13:0.138)
Yeah. Well, I I use my Note app for everything. Like, I mean, tracking what movies I watch, what books I read, what exercises I do, like what I need to buy at the store. Like everything's on there. And I know I have a work phone. So if I'm trying to remember something, I'll either put it in my Notes app or text my work phone from my personal phone. So that way, when I get back to work in the morning, I'm like, oh, yeah, I remembered that last night. Now I know to remember to do it today.
Kevin Dennis (:Oh, personal phone?
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, and that's a kind of a good point there everyone works kind of differently but we can find the apps that are gonna work with our brain and how we work so All right. Another app that I think is a must-have that everyone must have on their On their you know, iPhone computer. I mean this app works everywhere is Grammarly I think you know especially
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:One, Grammarly now has a lot of chat GBT features in it where it can, you know, make it. Yes. Go ahead.
August Yocher (14:0.266)
Yes, they're sorry. Yeah, no, because as you guys know, I work in marketing with Fantasy Sound and I do a lot of blog writing and there's this one new feature with Grammarly that I really love. It's kind of like that where you can highlight like a sentence or a paragraph and you can click this button that says improve the impact of my text and it will like suggest rewording it in some way or adding
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:you know, different language. And honestly, it's really amazing because sometimes I sometimes it's not really the tone or the vibe I'm wanting. But other times I'm like, wow, that landed a lot better than I had originally written it.
Kevin Dennis (:Yes, and the nice thing too that that's an amazing feature and other features you can take like an email that you have and you know, say you're having a real difficult, you know email back and forth exchange with a client like make me nicer, you know, make me a little you know like improve it to make me a little bit more, you know, not forceful firm. Yes, there you go. You know like yeah, but so there's a bunch of different options in there that will help you change your text, but that's the best.
August Yocher (:Yes.
August Yocher (15:3.276)
Firm. Yeah. Firm but polite.
Kevin Dennis (:I think you absolutely need that.
August Yocher (:Yeah, the best investment, absolutely.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, so another for so some of us travel a lot in this wedding industry that we're in And this is an app that i've been with now for many, you know me brand loyal uh, uh trip it i'm a big trip at person and um The greatest thing is when you're traveling the day of your traveling It'll it'll tell you hey your your uh planes on time If you're traveling and your plane gets delayed, it'll it'll send you a notification. Hey Your plane is delayed
August Yocher (:Yep.
Kevin Dennis (:Here's other options. So they'll give you like other options while you're traveling. But then the other cool feature of it is it just recently happened. We're going to Hawaii for the kids spring break. And they sent me a little update telling me your flights have come down in price. And so I was able to go in, cancel our reservation, rebook our reservation, and literally saved $700.
August Yocher (:Mmm.
August Yocher (16:8.635)
Ah!
August Yocher (:Oh my gosh, are you serious? Jeez.
Kevin Dennis (:swear to god so so so the app cost me i think i it's like in the 80ish dollar i forget off the top of my head but somewhere so that app just paid for itself for what six plus years you know so just in that one thing so that's something that they do it doesn't and that the little fair thing does happen at least once or twice a year to me and so just that feature alone yeah but
August Yocher (:Yeah.
August Yocher (:See, I... Saving so much money.
Kevin Dennis (:But then the other thing that is cool about this app is you put in your rental car information, your dinner reservations, your hotel reservations, you put it all in the app. And then once you book something, you send it to what they, from the email address that you have registered with Tripit, you send it to plans at tripit.com and they automatically go through, suck out the information and add it to your calendar. And so they have it, and they have a subscribe calendar.
So, and my calendar, I have subscribed, so anything I send a trip at automatically pops into my calendar already. So then, those are the... So, you ever seen the people when you're traveling, they show up and they're at the airport or the hotel and they have their little manila folder and they're pulling out all their printed materials of all their rental car, all the different things they did? You don't have to do that.
August Yocher (:Wow.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's my Nana, but she just super loves the physical papers still. She can't get on the app train.
Kevin Dennis (:Yep, you don't. You can't get on the Aftray. Yeah, well, you never know. I actually got my dad on Tripit a long time ago, it, yeah, it was a little bit of a struggle, you don't have to drag all that paperwork around with you anymore, because you literally have every reservation number, everything right in front of you, timing, the whole thing. that is... yeah. And then one more, or two more.
August Yocher (:Oh really?
August Yocher (18:5.366)
and all in one place, like that's so convenient.
Kevin Dennis (:We're going to go do two more Must-Avs. Okay, this is one, this is the best free app that I've ever had. And I have had this app now forever. It's called Foxit PDF Editor Pro. So this app, I use at literally every single wedding I work. So sometimes we work with a wedding planner and the timeline is 40 something pages long. Sometimes we work, you know, sometimes it's just a couple pages, but then we have all our paperwork and all that on there.
August Yocher (:Okay.
August Yocher (:Woo.
Kevin Dennis (:I take everything I have PDF it upload it into the app. But then the greatest thing is the magic is it's all on my phone It's all on my iPad. And so on the day of the wedding I'm not walking around with a clipboard or a binder of massive amounts of papers I'm able to scroll through but then the real power in this is I can write on it So then I use my Apple pencil, you know on the phone is I'll be honest with you The phone is a little bit harder because you end up having to use your finger. It's not as good So I always use it from my iPad
August Yocher (19:1.698)
Mm.
Kevin Dennis (:with the Apple Pencil and then you can go through and like, oh, we're changing pre-ceremony to this and oh, dad's no longer giving a toast, he's doing a welcome speech. So we can write on there and boop, change it, write it out. know, oh, you know, the maid of honor has decided not to do her speech. can, you know, go in there, cross it out and it flows with us and we are no longer, so many wedding professionals walk around with big old either binder or clipboards, a massive amount of papers and so, yeah.
August Yocher (:me!
Kevin Dennis (:But we're saving trees. And the best part is that you have all your information, and it's little less conspicuous, and it's all right there in an app. So that's another.
August Yocher (:Well, and like you said, too, it's the optics of it, too. Like having less junk to be carrying, you look more prepared. It looks more professional. And then, you know, I think we've talked about this on our other podcasts before, too, but not leaving any media around for guests to accidentally read or, you know, family to accidentally read. Like it's secure. Like you can get a strap to put on your body. Like so much easier that way.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:No.
Kevin Dennis (:especially with the iPads, it's so much easier. And then a lot of those ones that it'll be a little case you put it in and they'll even have a little thing for the Apple pencil to hold. And it makes it so much easier. But can I tell you how many times have I seen a guest pick up, you know, curiosity killed the cat? No, and they're reading it. So therefore they know we are like 15 minutes behind. And then all of a sudden they get judgy. If that guest didn't read that, they would have zero idea.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:Yes.
August Yocher (:What's this?
August Yocher (:Uhhh
Kevin Dennis (:that we are 15 minutes, no knowledge, right? anyway, all right. And then one more must have, you must have some kind of a CRM. Gone are the days that we're keeping track of our customer information in Excel spreadsheets or however, you know, a Word doc or all that kind of stuff. You need to have some kind of a CRM to run your, run your business, especially so like, like, so we have an inventory, um,
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:software that we've been using for a long time called Flex Rental Solutions and it has a CRN component on it and we finally came to the realization that we are wasting time using this as a CRM. We could not run our business without the inventory side of it, but we realized when we were at Wedding MBA, you, Lindsay and I, that we're gonna have to get a real CRM. So we spent the time. We looked at
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:a bunch of them, Zoho, HubSpot, HoneyBook, and we decided on DubSado. So we're in the process of hiring someone to help us automate it, and that's where the power is. And from experts that use it, say you can save anywhere from five to 10 hours a week with using that. And so think about it, if you're a single person that...
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (22:2.774)
Damn, yeah.
Kevin Dennis (22:7.847)
I'm a wedding planner. I do it all myself. I do all the emails. I do the onboarding. I do everything by myself. Imagine what you can do in five to 10 hours in a week.
August Yocher (:That's precious amounts of time.
Kevin Dennis (:Right? So I think it's, and even for us, we're gonna be more productive and able to work on projects and no longer onboarding. Yeah.
August Yocher (:Well, that's, yeah, I mean, a great start to our new year to just, you know, try and get into those new habits and just try to, you know, use our time more efficiently.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, so those are my must haves. You gotta have those. It doesn't matter what brand, know, flavor, color of app. You know, they all come in all kinds of different color, sizes, shapes, you know, but they're, you know, like, there's something out there for you. So those are ones. All right, we gotta stay connected with our clients, right? So we at Fantasy Sound for the longest time have been using Acuity to schedule appointments. So now...
August Yocher (:Okay.
August Yocher (23:2.530)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (23:4.526)
Gone are the days where a client will go, well, I would like to meet with you. Great. OK, I'm available on Thursday at six. Well, I'm not. And then all of sudden, that back and forth goes back and forth. And you've exchanged now 15 emails to try to find the day that works. And now you just go, hey, this is my, you know, here's my availability. You send them a link to your calendar. They pick it and it's done. They're picking at their time. They know when you're available and it all works out. And the biggest thing is when we did this,
because we were horrible at setting boundaries with our clients before we used this. we, God, we've been using Acuity now. I want to say almost eight plus, almost maybe, I would say it'd be shocked if it wasn't even 10 years. We've been with them for a long time. But before that, it's like, okay, I'll meet with you on a Sunday. Oh, you know, because that was the only time they said they can meet. Right? And so here I am coming in my day off, you know.
August Yocher (:Mmm.
August Yocher (:Mmm.
August Yocher (:I would do that too.
Kevin Dennis (24:3.426)
to meet with them or on an event day, right? And so we were, yeah. So Mondays is always, know, cause I do work on Sundays sometimes, but Mondays is my like day to do family errands and you know, run to Costco grocery store, you know, grab lunch with my wife, the whole, it's just my day, right? And so then Tuesdays at Fantasy Sound is, it's a Fantasy Sound day. And so this is when we do all our internal meetings.
August Yocher (24:6.868)
Yeah, and it's just too much.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:This is when we take care of everything. then so, yeah. So starting, so we started doing where we meet with our clients Wednesdays through Saturdays. And can I tell you, we have not had one client. I mean, every once in while you get one that's coming into town and they're an out of town client or something that needs to meet on an off time. But I would say 95 % of the time having this boundary set schedule, you send it to them.
August Yocher (:Catch up.
Kevin Dennis (:and no longer are gone in the days of they're going, oh, I can only meet on what's Mondays. Those are my only day off. And so we have zero issues with clients now in doing it. And it just, again, back to the time saver of going back and forth. So I really am a big believer you need some kind of scheduling.
August Yocher (:But you know, I think you have to look at from both ends, you know, it's like, yeah, maybe they are only available on Mondays, but why does that mean you need to move your schedule around? They should be able to move their schedule around too, right? Like if you're going to meet on a day where you work or on your lunch break, like they can do the same thing. And, know, even though like, yes, you're a business owner, you still need that work life balance and
Kevin Dennis (:Maybe they are only available on Mondays, but why does that mean you need to move your schedule around? They should be able to move their schedule around too, right? Like if you're gonna meet on a day where you work or on your lunch break, they can do the same thing. you know, even though like yesterday,
August Yocher (:time away and time with your family and it's just so important for your mental health.
Kevin Dennis (:Well, and a majority of us in the wedding and event industry don't have that balance and that is it well and Part of it is we're always worried about sending boundaries with our clients and the sooner you can do that in your business The more freeing you become and the more creative you can be because now like like I said Tuesdays is our just our day to get all our stuff, you know cleanup
August Yocher (:Yeah, and it's understandable. I mean, it's a demanding industry.
Kevin Dennis (:Anything that happened from last week, get, you know, prepped for the next week and we get ready and go, you know? And it just, yeah, yeah, it really, and it's been wonders. We do all our internal meetings those days. It's so much easier. So, all right. So now August, you ask, so what if I have more than one person I need to schedule an appointment with, right? What do I use? I'm sure you're wondering that question right now.
August Yocher (:Yeah, a reset, you know?
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's exactly it. You took the words out of my mouth.
Kevin Dennis (:So, so doodle. So if you've never heard of doodle, doodle is the easiest way to schedule appointments with multiple people. So if I'm a wedding planner and I want to do a site survey with all my vendors, I would send them a doodle link and then they would go out and say I give them five. You can give two options. You can give a hundred options. It's amazing. But what I, what we use it for a lot is I'm, I'm involved in
Couple different nonprofits and a couple different Associations. So a lot of times we're all busy individuals. We all go in there and we vote on a day That you know and you vote on it So basically that's what you're doing with doodle you go you see the available times and you look at you cross reference your calendar You go I can do this one this one this one in this one and what ends up happening whoever started the doodle We'll look at the bottom and go well nine out of ten people can meet this one day. Therefore. I'm gonna pull the trigger
you this is the most time I can get everyone on, you know, to do it. Sorry, Mr. Photographer Man, you can't, you know, you're not available, we'll fill you in kind of thing. And then that way, the photographer's not upset because the photographer can go on there and say, oh, that's the day that everyone was available. I'm not, okay, you know, and won't get feelings hurt. But doodle is the easiest way. I've been on the freevert, you know, you can, if you really, lot of corporate America will do that with
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:scheduling big, you know, big meetings with their staff and different things. But so there is a paid version, but I've been on the free version of it and I've never had to pay for it as much as we much as we use it. So that's a good one. So. All right.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Did you pick doodle because of your dogs?
Kevin Dennis (:I did not, but that's what I would think about. I've been using the Doodle app long before I had the Doodle dog, so there you go.
August Yocher (:Oh, it planted the seed in your mind.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, those little dumb-dums. yeah, the boys. The boys are dumb-dums, not Aria. She's my favorite. All right. So all right, another app to stay connected. We need to stay connected with our staff, right? So back in the day, we would have a good old clock machine that you punch in and then you punch out. And when it came time to do payroll was a nightmare because you're trying to figure out everyone's time.
August Yocher (:Dum-Dums.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (29:9.908)
I would always, because I would be easier, would round up, you know, so if they worked 18 minutes, I'd round up to 30 minutes, you know, kind of thing. So we switch to when I work and there's multiple apps out there. But the greatest thing is now our staff, when they come in to work, they clock in and when they take a break, they clock out. And when they are leaving at the end of the day, clock, you know, they can clock in. But now we're paying staff by the minute.
You know, and so when we go to run payroll, it takes minutes, not, it used to take me two to three hours to do payroll back in the day. And I would dread, it was the one thing I would dread every other week to do payroll. Literally, I think it's 10 minute, oh yeah, that's the only way to do it back in the day if they're manually, yeah.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:Oh my God.
August Yocher (:You would do it all manually?
Wow. Yeah. Don't... I'm glad I'm not alive during a time such as that. That sounds awful.
Kevin Dennis (:Hey, when I started my business August, I actually typed all my contracts out on a typewriter. So that's how old, that's how old I am. anyway, I love tech. all right. So, but the other, so cool things with there is our staff can communicate with each other through the app. The other thing they can do too is they can request days off as well. And then we can even go on there like, hey, May 30th of this year is gonna be
August Yocher (:WAAAA-
August Yocher (:Yeah.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:super busy. can and they call them blackout dates. So you black it out so no one can you can request the time off, you know, and so it's it's really you know, it's for productivity timing money dollars. It's been one of the greatest apps we do and it's pretty minimal. We pay a small monthly fee for it and it's been really really cool. So
August Yocher (:Yeah.
August Yocher (31:2.078)
And Lindsay did that feature yesterday where you can send a chat to every employee all at once, which was great. Yeah, if you have an announcement, yes. I need a message her back today, so it's on my to-do list.
Kevin Dennis (31:7.484)
Oh Yeah, cuz she's yes, she's trying to get shirt size. Yeah
Yeah, there you go. Is it on your notes? Where'd you put it? Your notes app or?
August Yocher (:In my notes app? Yeah, no, you should see how many notes I have in there. It's wild.
Kevin Dennis (:I've caught a glimpse. I know you're crazy with your notes apps. But I don't know if you have ADHD, it's a little bit of you got to get it out of your brain. And if you don't get it out of it. Yeah. I am am diagnosed and proud of it. anyway. All right. So another app to stay communicate or connected with our clients, you know, is live chat. Do you know what live chat is, August?
August Yocher (:It's just dumping my brain always.
August Yocher (:Undiagnosed, who knows?
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:Nope, but I'm sure you have a great explanation.
Kevin Dennis (:Ha ha ha!
So live chat is, so if you're like on Target or Amazon and you're trying to buy something and a little box pops up and they're like, you have any questions? Yeah, so it's some, know, sometimes a lot of times it's a little bot you're talking to, but you know, sometimes it's real people, but most of the time it's a bot, but with the big companies. But live chat gives you that functionality on your website. So then boom, you know, potential client, you know,
August Yocher (32:9.694)
Oh, right, right, yeah.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:couple can go in there and start messaging you. Darcy and our company uses this the most yesterday, just yesterday alone. She chatted with three different people on, yeah, through live chat. And so every day we get a little email that tells us our stats. And if people will rate you, they'll rate you thumbs up or thumbs down how the communication was. But like when we first got, we've had this now, I want to say probably seven, eight years we've had this on our website.
We've had chats because where do couples plan their wedding? Most of them. Well, yeah, but then where are they when they're doing it?
August Yocher (33:7.337)
online.
August Yocher (:Oh. Oh, at their house? Oh, really?
Kevin Dennis (:at work. Yeah, so therefore they can have, they can be conversing with you, right? Oh, boss comes up, hide the screen. Oh, boss is gone, bring it back. But you can continue. We've had some...
August Yocher (:You know what, that's true because thinking back to my planning days, the amount of people who were not fully connected with me during the call because they were doing something off to the side, very visible in the back was their office or they're walking around the office just holding me in their hand while I'm trying to get through some information. So I believe that, yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, well and then the other thing is we've had chats literally last over six hours long because sometimes the people will check in, check out, you know, like go to one, like we had one, god it was a couple years ago Darcy goes, this girl just went to lunch, can you watch the chat just in case she comes back because Darcy was going to lunch, you know, and so then you, was kind of watching the chat for her, you know, and just in case the person responded.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:The other cool thing about live chat is you can start formulating your answer because they can't see what you're typing until you fully type it out. No, until you hit send. But while they're typing in the little bubble, you can start see. So it's kind of creepy sometimes because you'll start typing out and you can see them change their thought and they go delete, delete, delete, delete. then. Yeah. Yeah.
August Yocher (:Oh, like the bubble doesn't pop up.
August Yocher (:Wait, you can see what they're typing? Whoa! Okay, that's... I gotta know not to talk crap if I'm ever live chatting with someone. Wow!
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah Yeah, so but but but the quick thing the cool thing about that it helps you Be speedy and go back, you know, so like you can start going Oh, I know what they're gonna ask and you could start typing it out So when they send when they finally so you got to be careful though, you can't hit send until they till they hit
August Yocher (35:1.900)
Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (35:8.000)
Yeah, maybe type it in your notes app and then copy paste it over into the live chat. Yeah, whoa, that's really amazing. That's really cool.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah. So.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, but the bigger thing is to is like live chat is is very similar. A lot of our clients like to text, right? Or DM or send messages. So live chat is very similar to sending, you know that it's faster than a phone call. It's faster than an email. You know, it's instant. It's like having a conversation with them through text and that I think a lot of our our client are couples now like that kind of stuff. So all right, one more must have that we have to have is.
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:voiceover IP. Do know what that is?
August Yocher (:I mean, I don't think so. mean, we might have talked about it before. I'm sorry. Remember, you're teaching me today. I'm not the tech person.
Kevin Dennis (:I know.
I know, this is so surprising, the old guy teaching the newt.
August Yocher (36:3.720)
I so. Like, I mean, I've never been a techie person. Just not something that's come easily to me.
Kevin Dennis (36:6.198)
I just, I love, I love tech. All right. So, so many of us in the wedding industry are planning our business or, you know, we're on the go a lot. We are, you know, you know, sometimes we're traveling, whatever, and we need to make a phone call and we don't want to give our clients our personal cell phones, right?
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Well, the cool thing with a voiceover IP, it's basically a phone system, but it's done through the internet. And so it's gone are the days of having a big old, you have to have a phone system and a big old machine comes in your office and all these different things. It's all done over the internet now. And it's so awesome. So we currently are on Comcast. I'll be honest with you. We signed with Comcast because that's our internet provider. So Comcast business. then so we, they,
promised us that we would be able to text and message with our phone and they have never, never released it. So we are currently in the process of looking to switch to Zoom. So believe it or not, Zoom has come a long way from just having internet video calls, right? They actually have a voiceover IP system that is absolutely amazing. It integrates in with your Zoom, but also you can message. So we will have our own
August Yocher (37:9.697)
Hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:So we all get our own phone number through it and that will become the number that we can message with our clients through. And then that way they don't ever have our personal phone number and it's all done through the app. And it's cool. All in the app. But it's like real, yeah, it's all done through the app, like real text messaging. And right now, like with Comcast, my phone will ring on my cell phone when someone calls my Comcast line and I can tell that it's a Comcast, you know, a business call so I can...
August Yocher (:And you can text him too, right, is what you're saying? Oh, awesome.
Kevin Dennis (38:1.230)
fantasy sounds, this is Kevin, you know, like, and I can answer. So if I'm out in the warehouse and someone calls my, my office phone, I can answer it. If I'm out, if I ran to go to one of the event venues that we had to just check in on the guys and someone calls, boom, I can answer it. You know, and then we have my phone number set up on the weekends as an emergency phone. So, you know, someone, you know, a wedding planner or something needs to get ahold of us, some kind of emergency. We just say, Hey, you just call the office hit.
August Yocher (:Mmm.
Kevin Dennis (:I forget what whatever number they hit boom and then then it comes straight to my phone and I know on the week because I only get we have our phone system set up right now where we only receive calls from 9 a.m. To 5 p.m. And after that boom it goes right to voicemail to the voicemail service. So yeah
August Yocher (:Well that's great, so no one needs to feel guilty if it's after or before the fact.
Kevin Dennis (:No, yeah One o'clock two o'clock in the morning. It won't ring. My phone won't ring The only time it'll ring is if they hit that uh, that note of yep, and then i'm like in my head Oh shit button goes off. Oh crap. Something's going on and I have to answer it every once in a while A client will sneak through and go. Oh, hi. I need to schedule an appointment. I'm like And in my head I want to go I want to go. Hey dumbass. No, this isn't yeah, so and Yeah, yeah
August Yocher (:Yeah.
emergency.
August Yocher (:It's not an emergency!
August Yocher (:This is me setting boundaries with you.
Kevin Dennis (:So anyway, so I really think you have to have some kind of voiceover IP system, especially in the industry. And even if you're a one shop person, you you need to, you you can get a Google phone, you can get it through even Google, something as small as that, but you need to have something that's different than your normal cell phone. So you can have, you know, again, boundaries, big believer on boundaries. So, all right, I'm gonna rattle off a bunch of other apps because we're running out of time.
August Yocher (:Yes, absolutely.
Kevin Dennis (:But so I think people, you need to look into Airtable. It is a great way if you use Google Forms or anything. It's just such a great way to gather information. Passwords, you have to have somewhere to manage your passwords. like someday August will leave us. But because right now, well, I'm just saying, I'm not saying you're going to be with the beef forever, but I would love for you to be with me forever. But someday, like whenever an employee leaves.
August Yocher (:What?
August Yocher (:Okay.
Kevin Dennis (:All we have to do is go in and delete their one password and they no longer have access to our passwords. We don't have to go through and change the 40 different passwords that we have. So there's all kinds of different services. We like one password out there. So that's a really good one. Contracts. So Dubsado is going to be able to do contracts. But right now we're sending contracts through Dropbox Sign. And so we've been sending contracts, I want to say, almost 15 years.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:Like we were one of the first people to really jump on that as well. Project management, know, another click up notions, you know, is another good project management. You need to have something to manage, especially if the multiple people that's out there, you know, AI, we could probably do a whole episode on AI, but you know, but just even having the chat GBT, you know, all that kind of stuff.
August Yocher (41:9.568)
Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:This is another fun one that people need to look into. It's called teleprompter for video. So if you're if you are not comfortable being out there or you know like you can't go off the cuff and talk you know so you can write a little script for you and like a teleprompter while recording you'll be able to read your script and you're looking at the camera and it's recording you and no one will have any idea that you pre-written what you what you were trying to say. So it helps you do that it'll help
create video captions as well. Mary, 3D renderings of an entire event site, check in that. Hello Bar, so we have that on our website. So if you go to the Fantasy Sound website and you look at the very top, it'll say, our event showcase is on this day and it's a quick way. But while they scroll, that bar stays there the entire time. And so it's in their face because we want them to come to our open houses.
and come. if you have a promotion or you do anything, that's amazing. I think, oh, Rock Paper Coin. This is one that we've been looking into. I don't know if we're going to go down that road because of DubSado, but we'll figure it out. But they do contracts, invoicing payments, and they are mainly for the wedding industry. So check them out. They are great people as well. And then new, thanks to my friend Julian.
Aura you got to get an or if you have an aura ring we're so in the wedding I was just showing before we came online I was showing August my aura all my sleep stats and all that kind of stuff It helps us because we were such we live such stressful life lives that we need to be better about working out we need to be better about Exercise all this kind of different things. So, you know and even our sleep I think we're in wedding season really starts
We are the worst people in the world when it comes to sleep. I remember this summer, like I literally, we had a huge wedding that had to be ready to go by 12, 30 in the morning. All our staff was working that night to strike all the weddings. So I worked through the night from 12 o'clock in the morning till 3.30 in the morning. And then- correct. Then I went back and I slept for just a couple hours. And then I was back at that same event site at
August Yocher (:Mm-hmm.
August Yocher (:And that was after working an event, right? Yes.
Kevin Dennis (:8 30 and then I was to start getting the jumpstart before all the staff started rolling in throughout different shifts in the morning to stay ahead of everyone because we had to have that wedding ready to go by 12 30 in the wedding industry you know like we don't get a second chance we can't you know we're not like the film you know tv industry that gets to take multiple takes we got one take to get this right and so that's why I think a lot of our stress comes in so
I'm loving my new aura ring. It's telling me what I need to do to be a human, healthier human being.
August Yocher (:I know we've been talking about it a lot today and now I'm sold. I need to go get one too.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah. So is there any apps or anything that you were thinking of or something that you're going to?
August Yocher (:Oh, I should have prepared for this. Wait, let me just like look at my phone. Oh, well, I have some like fun ones, but they're not necessarily wedding professional related. I have a bunch of apps that I'm using right now just to kind of kickstart the new year. So one of them is called One Second Every Day. And basically,
Kevin Dennis (:Well, it's better to go off the cuff, girl.
Kevin Dennis (:That's fine. We all need fun ones.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
August Yocher (:Each day you take a one second video and usually it's something that is the most, you know, entertaining or interesting part of your day. And then by the end of the year, you have close to a four minute video of just your entire year split up into one seconds. And yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really cute. So I think at the end of the year, you know, I'll find some fun song to put it to. And then I've just been
Kevin Dennis (:And you've been doing it every day? Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.
August Yocher (:I had this resolution to watch more movies that I haven't seen and read more books. So I've been using the apps Letterboxd for movies and Goodreads for books, just tracking what I'm reading. And as of right now for January, I've already watched 18 movies, new movies, and I've read seven books. So I have all of them logged in there and rated and you can have friends on there, you know, create.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Holy cow.
August Yocher (:read lists or watch lists. So I've just been very invested in those because it's just kind of a fun little thing to do in my spare time, a little hobby and just makes me happy right now.
Kevin Dennis (46:5.624)
What was your favorite movie you've seen so far this year?
August Yocher (46:8.418)
The Truman Show. I haven't seen it before and that was honestly my reasoning for starting this was I always have people come up to me and say, oh my God, you've never seen that movie and I'm tired of it. I gotta put it to rest. So watching some classics, but yeah, The Truman Show was really amazing. It was, yeah, great film.
Kevin Dennis (:Ha ha ha.
Kevin Dennis (:Perfect. All right, girl. So we're going to wrap it up. Again, thank you for jumping on Mind Your Wedding Business with me. I really appreciate you coming on with me. But also, I want to let everyone know, let us know what some of your favorite apps are. I'd love to hear what people, because that's, I'll be honest with you, when I go out and speak and talk tech to people, I learn from the people just as much as they're learning from me, because we all use apps in different ways. And there's, again,
August Yocher (:All right.
August Yocher (:Absolutely.
Kevin Dennis (47:1.336)
five and a half million apps out there. So there's so many apps that, know, it's an untapped, I mean, it would take us forever to go through all these apps and do it. So, but remember, I'm gonna wrap up my big takeaway, sanitize. That's what I want. I want you guys, yeah. Get in there, clean it up so these apps are not tracking you, following you or whatever these apps do, you know, cause they, yeah.
August Yocher (:Yeah.
August Yocher (:sanitize.
August Yocher (:Charging you if it's a subscription Yeah
Kevin Dennis (:That's a big one too. Yeah, make sure you cancel especially if it's a subscription one. anyway, all right, folks. Thank you. We'll see you again. Don't forget to rate us, love us, whatever, all the stuff. us on all the things. Do all the things. And we'll see you next time on another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business.
August Yocher (:All the things.
