In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin Dennis sits down with Julian Ribinik of Julian Ribinik Studios to talk about one of the biggest challenges wedding professionals face: navigating business seasonality in an increasingly unpredictable market.

With nearly two decades in the industry, Julian shares how traditional booking patterns, such as engagement season and clearly defined busy months, have shifted, making it harder to predict revenue and plan ahead. From last-minute bookings to inconsistent lead flow, he breaks down what’s changed and how it’s impacting wedding pros today.

Kevin and Julian explore how mindset plays a major role in handling these shifts, and why relying solely on referrals, Google, or past patterns can keep you stuck. Julian shares how expanding beyond weddings, building intentional relationships, and redefining your ideal client can create more consistent, year-round opportunities.

If you’ve ever felt the stress of slow seasons or unpredictable bookings, this episode will help you rethink your approach and build a more stable, adaptable business.

Julian Ribinik is a New York-based wedding photographer who has been in the industry since 2006. After balancing photography alongside a corporate career as a VP of Customer Success, Julian made the transition into entrepreneurship full-time. His personal journey toward improving his health led him to also launch a health coaching practice in 2018. Today, Julian combines his experience in business, marketing, and personal development to help creatives grow more sustainable and intentional businesses.

Highlights

• Why wedding seasonality is no longer predictable

• The shift away from traditional engagement and booking seasons

• How mindset impacts your ability to handle slow periods

• Why relying on the same lead sources can limit growth

• The importance of defining and attracting your ideal client

• How expanding beyond weddings can create year-round income

• Why networking and relationships are key to consistency

Connect with Julian:

Website

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Facebook

LinkedIn

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

Instagram

YouTube

TikTok

LinkedIn

All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. I'm here with the one and only Julian Ribinik And we are, how you doing, Julian? I love it. All right, and today Julian's gonna be talking to us about how to deal with business seasonality, which I think is something we all struggle with in the wonderful wedding world that we live in. So before we jump into that, Julian, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today?

Hey guys, doing fantastic.

course. So I have been a wedding photographer for over 18 years now. I'm a little dated and ⁓ it's so funny. I usually been told like not not to say when I started just to say like in that amount of years so maybe I started when I was five, which which doesn't date me, obviously

Ugh.

we are doing large range of events. We specialize in weddings. We do mitzvahs, we do galas. We do really anything that is ⁓ photographable and is related to events. And with years, we also branched out to different things that...

kind of sprout out of it because people have birthdays and they want to do commercial shots because they like us. So we're doing anything really that can be covered by photography. I'm also on the board of WIPA in New York. I'm currently marketing director and I dealt with sponsorships. ⁓ So I'm having a lot of fun with the industry.

I'm gonna say that's a big job in itself, getting sponsors for stuff, so keeping you busy. all right, Julian, give us a quick overview. We kind of jumped in a little bit what you do today, but how long you've been in the industry and how you've been affected by seasonality.

Okay, so being in the industry for this long and in New York, we're all affected by the fact that there's winter and there's summer and the temperatures are very much different. And in New York, you can have 30 degrees jump in the fall or in spring, like we currently have going through those hoops. So there is a really pretty much defined wedding season.

where we are. And usually, usually, and I don't want to say for anyone, ⁓ specifically, or for everyone in general. But in New York weddings kick in around May, and they die around November, at least this is how it's traditionally happening. And there is a little gap for July and August when the

Mm-hmm.

there's a lot of heat and there a lot of vacations where we typically see the dip. And historically June and September were most busy months, weddings-wise, and now it's shifting a little bit, which I don't know.

Mm-hmm.

global warming, is it politics, it ⁓ people trying to save money, but we see that September and June are no longer busiest months, which is really interesting. But in general, I would say that winter is really, really empty in New York, and ⁓ summer, or let's end of spring till.

Mmm.

end of fall is the busiest season for New York. We can also see that we have ⁓ on the same East Coast, Florida, and for them the season is opposite. So it starts in September and dies around April, May.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that's kind of similar. So the one of the greatest things when I was with the national president I you know being here in California I never understood that there was seasonality through you know, all the I thought everyone did what we did, know, kind of yeah Yeah, and that was the greatest education I got, know learning that you know, like the folks in you know, like over down in Arizona is very similar to Florida, know, like kind of that how they how they roll more in the winter months with

You guys will have the same all year.

they're busier and doing that kind of different thing. So it was a very big education ⁓ for me to learn. So, all right. So you've been in the industry since 2006. So how do you feel seasonality has changed over the years?

I don't think there's very well defined season anymore. And it used to be very clearly, there's no work in the winter, there is work in the summer. And it was very common for people to say, okay, like what are you going to do in off season? And people like working on the marketing and working on my SEO or chilling. ⁓ While it was always clear when people say that they really like struggle and... ⁓

Work is not there and if you don't have income coming in, it means you're really booking ⁓ really well or you're really struggling. Now, we do call it the winter when there is off season, also engagement season or booking season.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that's what I call it, booking season.

which used to be true until probably 2022. I think when there was no work, then winter holidays, starting Thanksgiving where people would get engaged, start looking for venues, then start looking for photographers, then going everywhere else, or they would find a planner and then they would start. And ⁓ for us,

December through March was always busy with bookings, which we eventually started relying on. When you have no work, you at least have people who come and pay.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

retainers and you can live with that even though it, if there's a lot of them, it's great. If there's not many of them, know how the year is going to look like. And it was very easy to predict how your year is going to look like because it was very standard for people to book us year and a half or a year at the shortest out and I could see the full picture.

Yeah.

And now, in the last couple of years, it all went to, I don't wanna use bad words, but it changed, in nice terms. And it was very stressful in the beginning to understand that, maybe there's no more real engagement season, while there's still seasonality in terms of when weddings are happening.

That's what say. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

So last years, and I'm not talking about this year specifically because this year ⁓ is completely different for us personally, but ⁓ as a trend and what I see with others and on Facebook, forums, on people talking, everything started being last moment.

Mm-hmm.

and ⁓ we don't have that engagement booking season anymore. And I can say that we booked the bulk of weddings for this year way before engagement season. And it didn't really.

Yeah.

go into anything significant into 2027, and people keep on booking 2026. I have seven weddings in talks for this year, and earliest is July.

Yeah.

But

Wow And well, and it just it's really crazy how how that has changed and so it's so hard to predict and you know You know what I'm saying? It just and and I think it brings a whole level of stress to everything and even even like out here in California We find you know, like we used to have that book you like you said that booking season and it just is not there Like it used to be the one thing we do find I don't know if you guys noticed that

⁓

Come about like Thanksgiving time to New Year's. People put their wedding planning on hold. And then sometimes you'll get a little bump like right after the New Year, but then it's not like continuous like it used to be. I don't know. Like that's kind of what we, like you mentioned 2023, like kind of that, that's kind of where we started noticing that change. Are you noticing that over, you know, on your coast as well?

Absolutely, we definitely have the same thing where it used to be come maybe not November, December, we were getting leads, leads, leads, leads, then you had deep four, Christmas and New Year and there was absolutely nothing. And so in mid January, it would start the flood of leads into the mailbox, which.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

completely disappeared in the last couple of years for us. And last year, it was more this year, absolutely nothing has changed. So I don't see that coming.

Mm-hmm.

it's completely different from what was happening before. Now, not to say that there used to be a dip after the engagement season and like we would not book anything end of March till maybe June and then year out people would start booking again. So June was a lot. And now the cadence has changed completely. We don't have any waves, we just have

Yeah.

Yeah.

leads that come and

It's a completely unpredictable times.

Yeah, yeah, and it's I think people are taking longer to make decisions or I think there's so much that goes into into that, you know, a whole new generation of people were, you know, we're dealing with and all kinds of stuff. So there's a lot that goes in

there.

So so, Julian, why do you think so many wedding pros are, you know, they struggle with the ups and the downs of the seasonality?

My personal...

opinion on this, it might be multifaceted too, because I get ideas as I talk. But in general, I don't think that most people are prepared to pivot, have plans, and understand that being a wedding photographer doesn't mean you cannot do something else.

Mm.

And I think it really goes back into our previous conversations about networking. And I see clear difference between people who just deal with the craft and art and they say, do weddings and this is what they do. And there's normal bookings for this year or I'm fully booked or I'm having nothing and they clearly predict that, if I'm not booked six months out,

That's it, have no work for six months. And people who put a lot of time into networking, into talking with other people, and pivoting into other areas where it could bring them work into off-season. So I would say there is more of a, and it's not nice to say, but it's professional definition too, it's a victim mindset.

Mm.

Yeah.

where the things are the way they are and that's what happening, it just happening to me and I also see hundreds of other people in Facebook groups who complain about the same versus people who understand there will be low season, I will have no work, what can I do about it? Or also understanding that if you are relying on Google, you're relying on, ⁓

people finding you or referring you as a past client, then you will have more of the same because we are basically the reflection of most people that we are around of, right? And that also true for our clients. So if my typical client are people who looking for vendors on Google, let's say, and then refer them out,

Yeah.

So it will be the same for their friends. So all these people will be kind of similar. So for example, these will be people who are trying to save money or they are not getting married in the winter or, so by relying on that lead stream, we are getting stuck and we are not open to getting work from other places. But then there are other.

Yeah, yeah.

people who are getting married and they have money and they do get married in winter, but they will not be referable from people who your client base currently.

Yeah.

Mmm.

⁓ And it used to be that people who want to get married off season, they try to save money. Right now, we have people who just decide, okay, let's get married, and they go and get married. And money is not the problem. I do see a lot of...

Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah.

complaints, that's the generation, that's the season, that's the trend, that's TikTok, whatever, and that is not correct. You're just not working with the right people. And I don't think that most people understand who is their ideal client. But when they do understand who is their ideal client, and that client is not profitable for them, they just stay there.

Yeah.

and instead you can decide, okay, I'm going to go after someone else, I'm going to change my tactics, I'm going to try develop connections with someone who would be better for me. And we do need to understand that people who save money, they refer people who want to save money. People who are high net worth and make decisions like this, I want to get married in a week, and I don't care how much it costs, they refer people.

⁓ Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

who are like that. ⁓

And to them, it doesn't matter if it's cold or if it's not because they can say, okay, if it's cold, I can go to Bahamas, I can go to Florida, or I don't care, I just won't go outside. And they will spend same amounts, but you don't know them because you used to do the weddings with a different audience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in

order to get to these people, you need to either have luck and somehow do one wedding and they will refer to you or go out network, meet people who do these weddings. And funny, a lot of people who do these weddings, are not.

wedding planners who you're going to go after.

Mm.

Yeah, there's a lot of weird. Yeah, that's a whole nother. I feel like whole nother podcast episode we can dive into right there. So.

Yeah, when I understood how things work and stopped relying on Google and SEO and started relying on connections that I want to get and being very aggressive in pursuing these connections, which are by the way, for the context, are not planners.

Mm-hmm.

it's literally anything other than planners. Things started happening. We also leaned very heavily into understanding who is our ideal client, interviewing our past ideal clients, understanding why they hired us, what were their decision kind of factors, and even us reaching out to these people even after like.

Hmm.

eight, 10 years, reminded them of us and we started getting referrals for their friends.

Mm-hmm.

which was magical. And it also, again, reminds about being top of mind and those rules of networking where people, did their wedding, they said thank you, they forgot about you. And they will not necessarily refer you if someone around them is looking to get married and have whatever vendor because it was 10 years ago. Maybe they forgot they got married at any point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

but when

you come up and say, hey guys, how you doing? ⁓ my cousin's getting married.

and I will refer you. So always stay top of mind. Another thing that we started doing is looking into where is the season that I can go to and get work. So I never wanted to do destinations. And I personally don't think that all this trend or not of doing destination weddings is really

Mmm.

that profitable or that cool because we all see nice reels on Instagram and people who want to do destination weddings, they say, like it's beautiful and definitely will be more money, which it's not and it's not a vacation. And in the end, you're not getting paid more for these weddings. It just looks cool. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah.

but understanding that in order to do that, you need to do way more logistics, spend way more money on cost of business, ⁓ and you might not necessarily get what you want, but staying within the country without going through any hurdles in terms of getting work permits or logistics or dealing with something unknown, we have destinations in the country which are very easily accessible.

and beautiful.

and beautiful and different. So you can get

creative because you haven't spent your life working in these places. And for most people, it's doable by making connections, by working with the right people, and of course, defining clear goals. So for the last couple of years, I started pursuing Florida very aggressively, in specific Miami Palm Beach market.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

networking there, meeting people from there.

second shooting for good photographers there to get portfolio, bringing these people here to second shoot for me and give them portfolio.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓

in New York, yeah.

which is very, very useful because the seasons do not overlap.

That's see that's smart

And there's a lot of people from New York who are getting married in Florida. And there's a lot of people from Florida who are getting married in New York. And it's going to be into like really when it's cold there or too hot there, they will go here. And when it's too cold here, people go there. Last year we did multiple Miami couples in New York.

Mmm.

well.

Mm.

Yeah, makes sense.

Hmm.

And now that it's growing for me in Florida, we just opened an office in Sunny Isles. So that's, have a new phone number and an address and it's very exciting. Yeah, it's great and I've been to Miami probably seven times since beginning of the year.

That is exciting.

now have weddings there. I did four already this year. And couples are from New York.

well.

that's hilarious. Yeah, yeah.

but the planners are local from Florida. So

by making planners aware that hey, I will fly, I will not put any extra price for you, extra cost, I charge what I charge and I'm not going to itemize that. And your clients who are from New York.

We will meet them in New York, we'll do the engagement session in New York, and we'll bring the team to Florida, or because we are now bi-locational, I have people in Florida as well. And I will always work for people who are from Florida who need to do something here.

Going nice.

and it expands the season to not have any season.

Yeah. All right. So we've been talking about, you know, the slow season, you know, the busy season, all the different times and that and we established that that's going to be different for everyone across the country depending on where you are. But what do you think, like, people waste or miss during their slow season?

That's a really good question because I think it can be multiple things.

At this point, what I want to say that if you have a slow season, you're not doing something right.

Mm.

And people do, and it's mostly coaches and different podcasts that they hear that say, ⁓ in a slow season, you work on your Instagram, you work on your website, you work on your SEO.

but all those things that people actually are doing. And I heard one podcast that is very popular where the hosts say, well, it's I'm writing my guides, I'm renewing my engagement session guides, I mean, and things like that. But no one reads that really, right? So I think when you don't have work, you need to spend money to get work and it's not by ads.

You need to see what's missing. And notoriously, it will always go for me into networking at least at this point, because when there is winter in New York, there's a lot of networking events happening in New York. And in February and March, we went to three or four, sometimes five, a week.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And going to these events, meeting people, connecting is what drives business really, really far. And a lot of these people, they are doing multiple events. So if you're known as a wedding vendor and you define yourself as a wedding vendor, you are not opening yourself to doing anything else. Because planners,

Mm-hmm.

and venues are just like your clients, they're people, and if they hear that I do weddings, they will not consider you for corporate party, or for a mitzvah, or for a birthday, and they will not even ask you, because you're like, I'm a wedding vendor. And same happens, by the way, for planners and venues. We see venues who pursue, like we want to do more corporate work, and no one comes to them with weddings.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So repositioning yourself and understanding that maybe people get married less in winter, although I had three weddings in February in New York. ⁓ It is a lot and we never had that before. And that's the coldest month.

Mm-hmm. That's a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And by the I don't have any in July and August at this point. I have some in talks. And I will be able to travel, which is good.

Hehehehehe ⁓

corporate events, birthdays, gatherings, they all keep on happening and there's no seasonality to that. And if you can show work that is that and you get connected to the right people, you will be printing these events, completely not thinking about weddings.

Mm-hmm.

And you know what, being a wedding vendor is not a medal of honor or anything like that, right? Because we all need to pay bills. And people like literally say, I do weddings, that's art and corporate events and not. Corporate events, yeah. But it pays better per hour if you do it right. It has less drama.

Hehehehehe

Correct.

Some are. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm

You can do it five, six days a week if you want.

and getting more money per hour with working less.

but also again, they always are happening, maybe except summertime for the corporate when people have vacations.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say for corporate, that's the only time I would say that June, July, when kids are out of school, corporate seems to be when kids are in school, corporate is doing all their stuff, because then they can rely on their employees to be at their different events and different things. Bye bye.

Yeah, and I want

to like, just for ⁓ perspective, we used to have, when we started charging more money, we used to have 20 weddings, maybe 15 weddings a year. And people do say, well, if you do more, you kind of low end and I prefer to do less and get more money. But even if you're doing one wedding a year.

and they give you $100,000, it's not enough to live, right? Especially in New York or any nice place to live, or New Jersey where we live. So this year, so far, I have 61 events on my calendar. And so far, we did 28.

No, not at all, especially in New York.

Yeah.

Wow, that's a lot for the first four months.

⁓

Correct, and we have two today, and you see me at home, right? But today in the afternoon, we have two corporate events, and both of them require just one person, and both of them pay more than average wedding. One is a gala, ⁓ one is just a little birthday party that will pay a lot. So.

⁓ yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

it completely changed my perspective and the way I operate. And I don't say I'm a wedding photographer anymore. And that was a big shift. So when you go to events, you say I do events, I do parties, and I do whatever you need. And you will have way more options to work.

Yeah.

Love it. All right, so we talked about slow. So what mistakes do you think people make in the busy season?

most of people I am friends with and talk with, are not doing the same things I do. They are not photographers. So I am assuming, and it's not everyone, but things I'm hearing, am too busy. It's too busy, so I'm not doing anything else.

I'm too busy to deal with my website. I'm too busy ⁓ with submitting, I know publication leads. I cannot go and network because I have three, four events that are coming up ⁓ while life is not stopping. So people really divide like now I'm busy and now I'm not.

Mm-hmm.

But if we look at your bills and for many people mortgage, there's no seasonality there. There's no like busy and not busy. You need to do that all the time. Also, if we're talking about going back to health journey or being fit, if you don't consistently eat well, you will have a problem. There's no like, I'll I'll.

They come every month.

Yeah.

Yeah.

this is my good season, so I will be eating good, and when I'm busy, I'm not going to eat well, or I'm not going to go to the gym, and we'll expect the same results. This is the same. So I think for most people who are struggling, they don't have a cadence of, and procedures of just doing the things. Not overworking, and not under doing the other things.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

And this is how people completely go and shift gears. And when you shift gears, you're neglecting something else. You can never do multiple things well at once. So we all need to establish an, a cadence and routine procedures of how my life looks like regardless this season, regardless if I'm busy or not.

Hmm.

Right, because if the systems are not in place, then maybe I cannot even deliver, right, if I'm too busy, I can't deliver to my clients, so I need to limit myself. How much do I take? I cannot say yes to everything. And by doing that and doing enough and not neglecting relationships and processes and maybe, you know, doing creative shots and like talking to people and doing free things.

Yeah.

you're opening opportunities for the rest of the year and then it will even out. So it used to be 12 weddings or 15 weddings and that's it for us. And you kind of, oh I need to raise prices, I need to do better marketing and now I just don't care.

Hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

because then I also have 20 mitzvahs and I've, God knows how many corporate events and these things keep on coming. There's always someone who wakes up in the morning and decides, we need to do an event.

different companies have events on a yearly cadence and they use the same vendors all the time. So you get their ones and then you know that once a year or twice a year or three times you have the same company doing the same thing with you and that's safety because they don't like to go and look for others.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, because they get comfortable with you and they have a relationship with you.

Correct, trust is everything. And that's

true for everything else as well. And also maybe understanding that in order to do something well, you need to do hundreds of thousands of reps of trying. People try, they go to event or they send an email or they post a post and then they say, well, I posted three posts on Instagram, it didn't work.

Hmm.

Hmm.

I went to four WIPA events and I didn't get any workout out of it.

Yeah.

There's a lot of reps, there's a lot of time ⁓ that you need to spend and you need to have a plan.

and that just works. But you do need to know what you want and not be a victim, which is a big part. We cannot say it just the way it is. It's just the season, it's just the generation, it's just clients nowadays because it's all you.

Yeah.

Alex Hormozi, if anyone knows, he's a really good ⁓ motivation guy based in Las Vegas ⁓ who used to be a personal trainer and became multimillionaire by doing good selling and marketing.

He explains that if you do not do one thing good and if you don't do those reps, you will be in trash. So you just need to start.

Yeah, it's true.

So true. So, all right, we were talking a little bit, we've kind of touched on and off on burnout a little bit, but so how does burnout tie into seasonality and how can people avoid that cycle?

I personally cannot relate to that altogether. What is burnout? Burnout is doing something or too much of something that you don't like doing.

It's more or less related to motivation.

And when I do something that I don't like doing and I need to do more of that, I eventually will stop wanting to do that. Or maybe I didn't want it in the first place. But I don't think people get burned out on doing something that they like. And they enjoy. So when people say I'm burned out of working in the wedding industry or I'm burned out on networking.

Hmm.

Did you really like it? Did you do it right? What were you doing and why were you doing it? Because doing things because someone told you to do it, like a coach or you read online or ⁓ chasing certain type of client or doing wedding certain way or doing events constantly and repeatedly while it might be beneficial money-wise, maybe you just hate doing this. This is where the burnout happens, right? Because...

eventually like in relationships, if you have a wife and you're doing something wrong and she tells you, I don't like what you're doing and you keep on doing it and she keeps on telling you, at some point she will throw something at you or just will file for divorce, right? ⁓ And you will say, what happened? So if you are feeling that work you're doing,

Good.

Yeah.

is tiring you or you're not enjoying it. Or again, like networking wise, I go to events, but it's like I hate talking to people and it doesn't work for me, then don't. Just stop doing or review what's not working. Really sit with yourself and say, are you doing the right thing? Because when people say like, I hate doing certain kind of event, no one forces you. ⁓

and you can go and do something else, but what do you like to do? And if you're forced to do something, find a positive side to it. Find why you do like it, what part of it you do like and develop that part. And I can say something that might be shocking to some people, but in photographing weddings, it's not the photographing that I like.

Mm-hmm.

I don't think that's shocking, to be honest with you.

But to most people, it's art, it's, right? So people say behind the frame, and then they start hating it, and they hating the trends and the colors and the gear and the film, and it's all about photographers. And I noticed at some point, I like the communication. I like going and talking to people and creating relationships. So when I photograph a wedding, I'm very heavily leaning into that part.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

and not thinking about the picture much. And sometimes when I have larger events, I don't even photograph the wedding. I have a team and they do the work and I'm present. I'm making sure everything is happening correctly. I'm coordinating everything and I'm talking to the clients and to the guests and to the staff. And that alone brought me more work than just shooting.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

and hoping for referral.

And I like that.

Yeah, I can see that.

So we can identify these things and do more of this. Planners typically complain about burnout at some point as well, right? But there's always the part that they hate doing and there's always the part that they like doing. So multiple planners, they spoke to who complained about this kind of thing.

Mmm.

when I ask like what is going on, they would say, well, I really hate the selling part or I hate talking to the client. I am the creative person. And I would, I love to go and design and draw and build it like look it come together, but I just hate the communication.

Which is hard to be a planner and not communicate.

correct,

but then you need to find a partner who will do that for you or hire someone who will do it for you, which is hard when you're a planner, so you'd want a partner who will be handling communication, you will be handling design, and you will both love it.

Yeah.

Hmm.

So find what is the burnout, where it's coming from, instead of blanket saying like, I just hate doing this, like I'm burned. Because there's never the blanket reason for that. It does not exist. There's always what do you hate in this, what is making you tired, and what part do you still like?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

because if you like absolutely nothing, that's called clinical depression.

Yeah, exactly. So which is a real thing in our industry as well. So, all right, we're getting ready to kind of wrap up, but I feel like we haven't touched on this yet. And I'm just kind of curious to get your thoughts on like what systems or habits do you have, Julian, that helps like smooth out your highs and your lows throughout the year?

I love looking at my events calendar and anticipate what event is coming up next, that is industry event. And as you know, I love this. ⁓ And like right now we have a WIPA event coming up in a week that we spend a lot of time on playing. I'm it's going to be amazing. This is how it's going to be and what we're going to do with sponsors and everything. And then I'm going to Bahamas for RSVP and I'm.

Yeah, you do.

busy with creating a wardrobe for myself. So what can you do? Always find ⁓ good things that you can enjoy while doing that. And ⁓ to smooth out ups and downs, think about where are your downs?

as we discussed previously, what are they happening? Is it seasonality? Is it doing too many things all the time? Is it talking to people and really finding the good part in that or deciding, well, you know what, there's not going to be work. I will go on vacation and I will go there myself.

or I will understand what part of business is missing for me and find myself a retreat to go to where I can rest, recharge, meet people, and build. Or really understand what are the things that I was doing all years that I'm doing this that are not working for me. Not just do what others say, like if it's off season, then you do.

SEO website, whatever, but really analyzing how are you getting your work? How are you getting your leads? Where are they coming from? And maybe instead of fighting for the sources of income or stream that is not working, double down on what's Okay, ⁓ if you are not having enough weddings,

but you have other things, go and double in that.

Mm-hmm.

If you feel like you don't have enough contacts, work on that. But everything has to be analyzed. My systems, and like talking for real, I'm using AI extremely heavily. ⁓ like right now I have claude running for me, like three, four tasks.

Yeah.

Okay.

wow.

and I'm trying to minimize the amount of things that I need to do that I don't want to do by handing it off. Not to marketing person, not to someone else, but to AI. So I have systems that automatically feed to AI all emails from planners and clients preparing ⁓

Mm-hmm.

analysis of the conversation for me, creating timelines, my events roster automated.

I live in spreadsheets that are created by my AI friend. And ⁓ I don't need to deal with logistics that I don't want to deal with. It tells me, hey, today you need to do this and this. Hey, you have a meeting. Have you have this? Hey, you need to follow up with this person. Every time I go to event, I take the whole spreadsheet of attendees who were at that event.

Mm-hmm.

and I feed it to my master, like multi-thousand contacts, master form, and it tells me, hey, yo, there's the people who you potentially need to talk to, there's the people who already you know, there's the people who, by the way, you need to follow up with. And I have my calendar built of things that I enjoy and I want to do.

Yeah.

And most things that I don't want to do, I'm working really hard on getting those things off my task list and handing them to AI.

And how difficult is that to set up?

So I would say that you have a virtual assistant.

Mm-hmm.

And people are divided on more or less in two. Some people understand that when you're hiring someone who doesn't know anything about your business, you will need to teach them. No one that comes into your business will know what you need, even if they are specialists in what you do.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

because

they don't know how you do things. They don't know your clients, don't know the language you operate with, your preferences, what you eat, nothing. And it's always expected for like, I hired the VA, so now I can rest. But you need to teach them for really prolonged period of time on how to do the things, and then you need to go and fix the things. And you need to explain what you didn't like, what you did like, give a lot of feedback.

and there are people who hire in VA and two weeks after, ⁓ that's shit because they cannot do anything I tell them to do, right? Because that's the lack of understanding you need to teach the person to do things. So if we compare AI to a real person, to a VA, AI knows nothing about you in the beginning, if you're just starting from scratch, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

but they can be way better specialist up front if you tell them to be. They can be master marketer, they can know all the rules, all the best practices, everything, and you just need to know how to ask, and then you need to explain to AI what you want. And that takes way less than to explain to a real person.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and you're doing this on Claude, you said?

I switched to claude completely. took all memory from whenever a chat GPT came out. Took it all, fed to claude And my life is so much better. But the only problem is now I want to do more things. So I like, I can build a separate website for this branch of business. So go and do this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

but it can create a fully working website for you from scratch in a day. ⁓ And I think it's, the possibilities are unlimited. And I don't think it is hard. i think that people who will stay in their professions are people who know to use AI.

and people who will die in terms of work, these are people who will stick to fear of AI or not using AI properly.

Good

Yeah. That's a whole nother podcast there, Mr. Julian. I love it. So, all right. We're going to wrap up here. Julian, we can't thank you enough. That was such an interesting talk and something we've not even touched on or covered on the podcast. So I really, really appreciate you bringing us this topic. It was really great. So, Julian, can you tell us a little bit where we can find you and

Well, let's go. We can do that.

in all the different places where the guests can connect with you.

Of course, if you can figure out my name, which is Julian Ribinik with all I's, you can find me at JulianRibinik.com and on JulianRibinikStudios at Instagram.

And we will have all of Julian's information in the show notes as well as the email blast that goes out. thank you, Julian, for being here. we can't thank you enough. Thank you, guys. We want to remind you to hit the Subscribe button if you have not done so. yes, please do. Please do. All right, folks, we'll see you next time on another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. Take care, guys.

Thank you so much for having me.