The Secret Sauce to a Great Wedding (and a fulfilling business)

I was at a wedding the other day, and every single person I met was  was inspired and inspiring, loving, fun, creative. It was one of the most beautiful curation of humans I’ve ever experienced. Every single person.

It got me thinking… How does this happen?

And more relevant, how can we apply the same principles to fill our business with amazing customers?

I’m going to explore the magic of the secret wedding sauce and how we can use it to create thriving businesses that enrich our lives on every level.

Quantity Versus Quality

We want to make sure we have a great party. A wildly successful business. But there’s this intangible element we sometimes don’t pay attention to…

We all know success requires numbers – guests or customers or clients. A birthday party of one isn’t so fun :(

Neither is a business. Seriously, you need the numbers.

But if you get obsessed about the numbers, you can lose track of what matters:  the qualityof the guests the quality of the customers.

The Secret Sauce to an Amazing Wedding Party

This is why we want to pre-qualify them.

We want to make sure they are the right customers. The right guests.

Awesome guests make for an awesome party. Their energy synergizes with the atmosphere and the other guests, creating that intangible quality of the perfect, unforgettable gathering. In a business, high quality customers make a focused and loyal customer base.

They make business a joy. You work with people who love what you do and you are delighted to serve them.

How to Make the Secret Sauce

In the wedding, the prequalification was a connection to the bride and groom. You might not think this is scalable or relevant to your situation,  but let’s take a deeper look.

They didn’t just invite random strangers.

They invited those who resonate with their values. The happy couple are two genuinely stellar people. They are heart-centered, music-loving, and community-oriented.

Their expression of their values resonates with people who share these values.

Their wedding reflected that and made for a beautiful experience.

The exact same goes with business. When you authentically express your values, you will begin to attract customers and clients who resonate with them. And these are the best customers and clients. These are people that are a joy to work with.

That joy then feeds back into the quality of your work, making you even higher-value, and improving your businesses even more. It creates a positive feedback loop that makes your work fun, exciting, and integrated with more depth, more meaning, more fuel to keep your fires of inspiration lit longer and brighter than your flagging competition.

But it all starts with working with the right people. It all begins with prequalification.

For me? I love yoga, meditation, and qi gong. I’m a music lover, traveler, and a total rhythm junkie. I am passionate about the science of health and nutrition, deep psychology, the mind-body connection, and ecology.

And when I talk about these things, I end up attracting clients who resonate with my values.

And these clients are amazing. I feel blessed to work with them. My work is fun and I feel grateful, which feeds right back into my quality of work and the energy I bring to my business relationships.

So to put it back to you, what are your values? It doesn’t need to be about your personal interests. It can be reflected by your choice of metaphor and language. It could be the kind of topics you speak or write about––these also subtly resonate with prospects. It can be the way you feel about your industry. It can be anything.

The important thing is that it’s authentic, that it’s “you”. Because that is your emotional touchpoint for creating real connection and building a customer base that feeds the whole you and not just your bank account.

Jeff Kimes