Episode 408: The Altar Electric
In this episode, Fiona chats with Anthony and Sarah, two dynamic personalities behind The Altar Electric. They talk about the ever-evolving world of marketing strategy and the challenges businesses face in adapting to changing trends. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
The power of serendipity in business
Importance of adopting marketing strategies over time
The impact of platforms
The concept of omnichannel marketing
Learning from past marketing failures and successes
Leveraging opportunities like partnerships
The long-term nature of marketing impact
Leveraging personal connections
Utilizing radio and TV exposure for brand visibility
Tips for utilizing TikTok effectively
The importance of authenticity
Leveraging tools like CRM platforms
Embracing imperfection
The importance of social media presence
Building a successful partnership
Creating a stress-free wedding experience
Overcoming challenges and adapting to unexpected situations
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“You've got to lean into the power of serendipity. We met, it was great that we met, but we lent into this energy that was there and made it happen. Often, we're presented with these potentially seminal moments in your life and we don't act on it. If the energy is right, there's no harm in saying, “Let’s give it a go.” That’s been our mantra for the business, always. Just give it a crack.”
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Welcome to episode 408 of the My Daily Business Podcast. This episode is an interview with some wonderful people because there's a few of them that run this business and I know that you're going to get so much from this. There are so many tips, insights, tactics, and ideas that these guys have implemented, some successful, some not as successful, and they're so open and honest about their whole journey in business. It's such a delight to talk to them. I’m excited to have them on.
Before we get stuck into that, I know that it is coming up towards the middle of 2024, which is crazy. You're like, “What?” We have one month more in Australia for this financial year. If you are looking to make the next financial year, which starts on the 1st of July 2024 here in Australia, and whatever your financial year starts in, if you're reading from other countries, if you want to make sure that is so good and that you've got your system sorted out, that you've got amazing strategic ideas, that you know where you're going, you have direction, you have clarity, and you have confidence because of the direction and clarity, then book in for some one-on-one coaching.
We have various packages from just an ad hoc session through to working with me once a month for twelve months. We have lots of different types of businesses that we work with and a wealth of experience and knowledge to help you. If you are keen to make the next financial year or the second half of 2024 as good as it possibly can be for your business and for your life, your life is so important, you shouldn't just be working 24/7 no matter what kind of stuff you read on social media.
If that is you and you have thought about this and you're like, “I enjoy the help that she gives,” and you've been getting something from this podcast, then consider working with me one on one and see if that's right for you. You can go on over to MyDailyBusiness.com/shop and you can see the different packages that we have available.
We have also had a couple of people reach out about group coaching. The next round of group coaching will happen in the second half of 2024. If you're keen to know all about that and when it comes out and get the emails first, you can sign up to the waitlist at MyDailyBusiness.com/groupcoaching. Lastly, I want to acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on this land, which are the Woiwurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into our interview episode.
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It is my absolute pleasure to bring you this interview that I did with 2 out of the 3 business partners behind The Altar Electric. The Altar Electric is an incredible business run out of Melbourne by Dee, Anthony, and Sarah. In this episode, I got to chat to Anthony and Sarah about this. It was my absolute pleasure to talk to them because these guys are a wealth of knowledge.
When they came to me for business coaching a while ago, I was in awe of the first session that we had. I was like, “You guys have killed it.” They had an incredible understanding of their financials. They had fantastic systems in place. They had worked with different agencies. They knew what they were doing. They came for a bit of finessing and a little bit of systems and processes stuff. It was my absolute pleasure to work with them because the three of them are just so dynamic and then when put together, it's no wonder that The Altar Electric is doing as well as it is.
The Altar Electric, for anyone who doesn't know, go and check it out because you will fall in love like I did, is this incredible brand and they are well-known for their venue, which is in Melbourne. It's a little wedding chapel, although they're also doing funerals, wedding renewals, and all sorts of things there, but predominantly weddings.
What it allows people to do who are getting married is to create a celebration that is totally them, that reflects what they're interested in, and reflects them as a couple. It's just a wonderful, intimate place for people to celebrate this incredible milestone with their loved ones. In doing so, they get to work with the amazing Dee, Sarah, and Anthony on what it is that they're trying to create.
Anyone who's got married or even partakes in being a bridesmaid, a groomsman, or something knows that it is a very stressful situation. However, one of the biggest things, and they talk about it in our interview, for these guys is how do we take that stress away so that when people come and work with us, it is an absolute joy from start to finish, which I would say that most people feel that wasn't the situation when they got married.
When I got married, it was very traditional but it was not that experience. It was wonderful but it was full of stress. One of the things that they talk about in this podcast chat is how they have created systems and processes to ensure that the client is having an incredible experience, it's seamless, and that they just enjoy themselves. You can get that joyness out of Anthony and Sarah in our chat and Dee, of course, as well, when I've talked to her.
It's passion about what they do. It is a want and a drive to do things better than what is out there in the market and to never get complacent or settle for status quo. Also, to have this incredible human connection with who they get to work with. As Sarah talks about, we get to turn up and be part of people's most wonderful moments in their lives. How awesome is that? That day in, day out, that's what we get to do.
In addition to the joy and all of the celebration, we also talk about the business elements of The Altar Electric, what it's like to work with three people, what things have changed over the years, how they came up with the brand name, things like their systems and processes, and what are the best marketing strategies that they've found. We talk about so many things. As I said, at the start, I had internet issues the day we were recording. It was not fun on my part. I want to say a massive thank you to Anthony and Sarah who kept it going and took it in their stride. Here is my interview with the wonderful team or part of the wonderful team behind The Altar Electric.
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Hi, Anthony and Sarah. Welcome to the podcast.
Hey, Fi. Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here.
I was so excited to have you. Can I ask how are you both feeling about life right now?
Life is good, I think so anyway. It's exciting. It's a bit exhausting.
We're recording in the middle of a very busy wedding season. Physically, a little bit exhausted. Emotionally, my heart is very full, with lots of amazing love stories, which is a bit of a privilege amidst all the madness of the world at the moment.
You get to be around people on such an important day that they will never ever forget, which brings with it its own pressure and stress, which we'll get into in a minute. Can you share with us the story behind The Altar Electric? It's such a cool name. What inspired you to create this? Also, there's three of you. Dee is not on the podcast but she is very much part of the trio behind this. How did you guys meet and then when did you come up with this idea?
It's probably a good thing not all three of us are on it because we talk over each other a lot. There's a great energy between us, which is probably what drew us together in the first place. The idea started back in 2016 when I met Dee through childcare in Brunswick. Our kids were in the same class and I was a celebrant and an educator said, “There's another mum who's a celebrant. You should connect.” I went up to Dee one day and said, “You're a celebrant. I’m a celebrant. We should just have a chat. We could bounce ideas off each other.”
Long story short, we went out for a drink in Brunswick and we got talking about how good it'd be if we just set up a shop in Brunswick where people could come and get married. Instead of travelling all over the countryside every weekend, how good it'd be to create a shop where our kids could come after school and we could marry people during school hours. The idea went from there. Anthony, you came on board because Dee and I had been talking about the idea for probably eighteen months and not doing anything with it.
I went for coffee one day with Dee because I'd been a wedding celebrant myself but somewhat of a lone wolf for about two years. I thought, “Maybe it's worthwhile going out there and meeting a few other people in the industry.” Through a connection of a connection, I was put in touch with Dee and I went for a coffee with her one morning and it was at that coffee meeting that I happened to throw out there this idea of having a workspace where people could come together right from the wedding industry, maybe work, and having a little chapel at the back there where you could marry people.
Dee and I were like, “He's going to do what we're going to do.”
It was those two conversations. I got a phone call the next day where Sarah and Dee were out on a walk and I was on speaker phone and they're like, “We've got a proposal.” That's where it came from.
When we met for the first time and we got chatting, it became clear that we were all on the same wavelength and all of us had the same experience as celebrants meeting couples who were so overwrought with stress and anxiety about their wedding. It should be one of the happiest days of their life and so many couples just wanted it done before they even started. We're like, “Imagine doing something like the registry office that was cool and relevant to people.” The idea went from there.
The story is long in how it got started but we got a start at a place called Ferdydurke Dirk in Tattersalls Lane and we just married people bar-side under a neon sign that we got called The Altar Electric. We married people when the bar wasn't busy. That was busy. Broadsheet did a piece on us and it exploded and we worked out pretty quickly that we had something pretty magical here. In 2019, we got our very first space at a shared studio in Collingwood, Schoolhouse Studios and we've grown from there. Now, we have an 80-person fully-operating venue on Johnston Street in Abbotsford and we do hundreds of weddings a year. It started off with a conversation over a drink.
It's cool. I love this. I also love that you guys met Anthony, this cool guy that was doing stuff. You were like, “Let's do it together,” as opposed to going, “He's going to do it first. Let's go out and do our own thing. Let's destroy him in the process.” Sometimes people think like that about business as opposed to going, “How could we come together and get the best versus become competitors.”
That's a great point. We always talk a lot about business. You'll agree that you've got to lean into the power of serendipity. We met, it was great that we met, but we lent into this energy that was there and made it happen. Often, we're presented with these potentially seminal moments in your life and we don't act on it. If the energy is right, there's no harm in just saying, “Let's give it a go.” That's been our mantra for the business, always. Just give it a crack.
Going at things for the positive. You talked about how some people might feel threatened and therefore go to battle with it, which, to me, there's a negative angle to that. The fact that we were all willing to go, “Let's do this together and make it great together,” was already a positive sign. One thing in our brand and our business in general that we talk about often is to be positive and not to be negative. It's not about not doing things. It's about celebrating things that we do.
That's always been the way we've worked as well as understanding what the three of us are good at and setting ourselves up to accentuate that side of it. The perfect being has not been created nor never will. We've all got things that we're good at and things that we're not so good at. Having a focus on the positive in the corporate world where I'm from, there's an expression of, “You turn up the good.” What you should be doing is turning up the good in every aspect because that comes back to you far more fruitful than worrying about something negative.
I love this. What you're well-known for is The Altar Electric combines this vibrant Vegas-style wedding and the wedding chapels that we know and see from the US and in Vegas with the coolness of Melbourne. The three of us are in Melbourne so we can all say that as well. How did you strike that balance? Also, how did you design the key elements without it looking like a replica or making it your own and making it Melbourne?
That is a good question. It's important to note that the chapel itself, we've had a couple of different iterations, which have evolved as the brand has evolved. They've all been a bit of a reflection of our different personalities. Dee is a maximalist maximalist and I'm not. I like a bit of quirkiness but I also don't like to be too out there, I like to be a bit on trend. Cribbes, what's your style? You're just happy to go with us?
Yeah. I don't get a vote in this part of the business.
We knew what we didn't want it to be and we didn't want it to be beige, we didn't want it to be generic, and we didn't want it to be pastel. We wanted it to be something that when people saw it in a photo, they would go, “That's The Altar Electric.” Also, part of that is also working within the frameworks of the actual space you've got. Our first room was an 8x4 meter, it was like a bit of a dungeon, and there were no windows. It was bright blue and we had this canopy of disco balls, which we've carried the whole way through.
We worked with a great designer, Kate, from Good Day Club, who managed to synthesize our brief, which would have been bloody hard to do for three people with their ideas. She did a great job in synthesizing that. From there, the looks evolved. In our latest iteration, we've got this love heart with a sky painted on it. It's pink, it's peach, it's red velvet, it's disco balls, and it's sequins. We said to our designers, “Let's just own the Vegas brand.” As you say, with that Melbourne sensibility, it's a bit tacky but it's a bit edgy. I don't know.
It's super. I love it. I'm more in Dee's camp. When I walked in and I saw your leopard print bar, I was like, “I’m in the right place.” It's incredible.
With this sort of thing, you've got to go all-in as well. In the wedding industry, it can be hard to stand out so we had to do something that was bold but also felt warm to people and a bit nostalgic. People love the retro element of the chapel as well.
You work in one of the most high-stress areas of life and you said before that when you were talking to couples, they're like, “I want it done before I've even done it.” Getting married and weddings. It's not just the bride and groom, the bride and bride, or the groom and groom, it's the whole family, the mothers-in-law, and everyone that gets involved. How do you deal with other people's stress and how do you guys turn it on when there might've been something that's gone wrong in your end? You're also like, “That didn't turn up,” or, “The caterer is late,” or whatever. How do you be super calm and friendly and get in the zone quickly?
There's a great expression that I've heard where you want to be like the duck. Above the water, the duck is just going along nice and calm and you think, “Great.” Under the water, paddling hard. It's almost like we've deliberately built our business to be like that duck. Even though when couples book a wedding with us, it's simple and straightforward for them and it's designed to be that way. They don't have to think too much, they just pick, “We’re this kind of couple. We want this kind of package.” It's all done and it's booked and it comes through.
We put a lot of effort into our systems and everything that goes beyond that. It does work pretty seamlessly but there's a lot that goes into it but it's pretty harmonious because we have set things up to be very much plug and play. Even like in our bar, when we serve drinks, we've got cans of beer and we hand cans of beer over to people. We do pour it into a glass for them but most people take the can of beer. That's a really simple process.
I know it's a micro example of what we're talking about here but there are so many other parts to what we've done under the water where the ducks are paddling hard that allows for that smooth process. Already, couples are feeling somewhat relaxed. Sometimes, Sarah will get feedback or Dee will get feedback, and they're like, “I'm stressed because there's nothing to stress about. For my wedding, I'm supposed to be stressed. Why am I not stressed?” Automatically, our business has thought of that and put in systems and processes to deal with that to take away the unnecessary stress. There are always the unplanned parts. Sarah has got a great story.
Things always happen out of the blue like one of the DJs that was booked didn't rock up to a wedding and I'm calling five minutes before. Because we have these incredible systems set up like a great CRM system, I was able to look in the client's folder file and see that the person that manages all our DJ bookings, Logan, who's amazing, put down all the details of that couple, what their entrance song was, and what their music vibe was.
I was able just to seamlessly, the couple had no idea, hooked into my Spotify, their music came through, and the whole wedding ran as it would. The DJ eventually got there an hour late but the couple had no idea because we were playing their music and they were so wrapped up in how smoothly everything was run. That’s the thing that worked out quickly in business when we were working from a bar so it was someone else's bar.
We worked out quickly that if this was going to be a stress-free process for us and for our couples, we had to control the parameters. If you're not controlling the parameters, there's going to be friction. Couples would say, “Can we get married at this time?” we'd have to go, “Hang on, just check with the bar.” Sometimes the bar would take a week to get back to us and then we've lost them. We have this incredible CRM and such a great network of suppliers that if stuff does hit the fan, we've got someone to call seamlessly.
Having those systems and all that stuff that you do behind the scenes that people don't see, that's why you've got to make sure you put in your focus for an event like weddings. We might do 200 weddings a year and that's fine, our couples get one, and we've got to make sure that that's the wedding for them. We've got to be able to move, adapt, and do whatever we can so that they don't feel like any part of their day was compromised. That's super important and that's something that we've put a lot of effort.
As we've learned, over time, because our business has built, it's not like we started out doing these big five-hour 80-person weddings. We started out doing five-people weddings for a ceremony and then we buy them a cocktail at the end of it. Starting slow and learning as we went, that was important to it as well.
If we tried to be big from the start, we would have cocked up and we probably would have had some 0-star reviews on there because we committed some faux pas and we've been lucky that that's never been the case. As Sarah said, even when things have gone wrong, we've been able to make sure that our business is resilient enough and adaptable enough that we can deal with it. It feels completely seamless for those people.
To your question as well about how we deal with people being stressed, part of our brand mission, I suppose, is to change the conversation around what a wedding should look like and what it should feel like. It's such a tired trope, the stressed-out bride. It doesn't need to be like that. Our business is all about thinking about what could potentially cause anxieties for couples and taking care of it.
We make it pretty clear in our websites, couples come to us, they know that all they have to do is think about who to invite, think about what to wear, we usually recommend clothes, and if they want to say vows, they can write their own vows but just to trust us because we've thought about everything else. I would say that it's very rare that we get stressed out because they've come to us because they want a stress-free experience.
I love that. I love wearing clothes. Also, I love it when Anthony said you do 200 weddings plus but this is their only one. I feel like that can go into so many industries. If someone's coming in and they're buying their first designer bag, it's the first one they've ever bought and maybe the only one they ever buy whereas you might have sold 27 of those bags. That's such a good mentality to have. You've mentioned how the three of you met and that you all complement each other. What are some of the biggest challenges with running this type of business that is live, you are in front of people all day long and it's not like my business where I'm behind the scenes a lot, with three partners?
Especially when you've got three strong and different personalities, if you met all three of us, getting the talking stick off, one of us is a challenge. Sometimes, we'll just bring three talking sticks and just deal with it. That does have its challenges. Sarah and I were talking about this before, three makes it work in a funny way. We've always been very clear and open as a group that had major decisions and it's a majority-wins vote.
If it's 2 to 1, it doesn't matter how staunch you were against it, if the other two want it, you just accept it and don't be resentful because sometimes you vote in decisions that you want and that someone else doesn't want and vice versa. Having that understanding was key and being upfront as a group. We're very open communicators. We use iMessage as our main message thread and it will have 300 messages in it a day. I'm not lying. It pings all gay with feedback from work to personal to everything and we put it all in there. We are open with each other and supportive. When we first started, we didn't really know each other that well.
I didn't know you at all. Now, you're my little brother.
We all love each other. We are a genuine family now. We're probably closer with each other than a lot of other people in our lives. That's key because you are going to have conflict and you are going to have moments where you're giving each other the irritants so you need to be okay with that and always come back to the fact that you love each other.
That's so nice.
Also, with three people, it is great. Three is an awesome number. This business would never have worked if it was just Dee and I. I don't think it would have worked if it was just Dee and Anthony. It wouldn't have worked if it was just Anthony and I. It needs the three of us and the different skillsets that we bring and tapping into those skillsets for it to work. Otherwise, this would still be talking about an idea and someone else had done it.
We represent different areas as well. We can all speak from our own personal experiences like when I was getting married and what it meant for me. Now, I'm a different person than Dee and Sarah so I can bring that to the business. Dee is different again and Sarah is different again. Whilst we're not trying to be a brand that's everything to everybody, being nothing to nobody, we still need to be very appealing to enough people that people want us. We can't just be going after one type of customer.
Anthony, to that point as well, is that we are three very different people from very different backgrounds. Dee grew up in Mildura, quite a working-class background. Cribbes, you grew up in Gisborne. I grew up in the eastern suburbs. We have different backgrounds but, at our core, we all have the same values. If you partner with people, it doesn't matter what background they're from but as long as their core values are the same, that's the most important thing as well.
Our name, The Altar Electric, was a process of all three of us. We were trying to come up with, “What do we call our business?” We were throwing these different names around different ideas. We wanted Love Shack but when we saw the domain and the paraphernalia that it sold, we were like, “It's going to be tied to that.” The three of us were like word spaghetti boggle throwing things out there. We'd had this original building we all talked about, that was the very start of it where we were going to get this heavy glaze that was going to set us back $250,000 a year.
It was a bad idea and I’m glad we never went there. It was down a laneway so we were like, “Do we call it what?” People were like, “It's an avenue. We'll call it Electric Avenue.” We were throwing names around and we're like, “It needs to have a connotation to a wedding thing.” Dee had said, “Why don't we call ourselves The Electric Altar?” Sarah and I, both at the same time, said, “No. We’ll call ourselves The Altar Electric.” Dee had the original name and then Sarah and I reversed it. It felt good the moment you said it and we were like, “Bang, we're on it.”
We also knew that one day we might want to do funerals as well so we thought that with the altar, we could do funerals as well as weddings. Electric is everything about our brand like the feeling that you get when you're in The Altar Electric actually is electric. It is like electricity popping everywhere, which is how you should feel on your wedding day.
It also goes with the light and the flame, it never goes out and all of that.
Three of us came up with that. We're like Captain Planet. When our powers combine, we're better. It works really well. It is the secret to what we would deem our success.
Amazing. When you mentioned before that you have a certain type of person who wants to get married there and yet you also need to be broad and it is a wedding place, a venue for all sorts of different couples. How do you market? That is crucial for people to understand that you exist. What are some of the marketing strategies you've put in place that are particularly effective? Is there anything that's been surprisingly good but also speaking to people that are reading this podcast, who will be like, “I have all these different audiences that I'm going after and how do I market to all of them at the same time?” Can you talk us through that?
I'll talk about the current marketing strategy. For anyone who’s reading and is pulling their hair out at marketing, this isn't a visual podcast but I am losing my hair because marketing is a challenge that business faces. I don't think anybody ever sits there and has it figured and it's a turnkey, “I've got marketing figured, here's my formula, plug it in, and it goes.” It's forever challenging your business and testing your business. What worked twelve months ago maybe doesn't work today. Why doesn't that work? We're in that same boat.
Everything we've learned with our marketing has been through experimenting, working, and trying things. We tried Google ads years ago and it was just throwing good money after bad. We use Google ads now and it's quite effective. I can't tell you why it didn't work years ago and why it works today but all I know it does. We were very clear on our brand and we're very clear on our brand messaging. We've pivoted somewhat. We used to be all about little weddings and things about small and little and it was all about that idea. Now, we've dropped the little and we're weddings that rock and we're a great wedding experience. We've adapted that message over time as well.
We've had to experiment a lot. We've had to know the term omni channel, which means that you're going to many places to find your people. You need to support your message across many platforms. Even though someone says that they found you on Instagram, chances are, they watched a TikTok, then they went to your Instagram, and then your Facebook ads were pinning them about your business because you retargeted them on Facebook ads, and then you were there on Google as well.
You need to have many places of presence to support your message because people jump from platform to platform now. They're in Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook, and that's all within a minute. If you're there in all those places, that's great, you need to be there to support it. What we do know is if we turn off one of those channels, we see a downturn.
As much as I'd love to be able to say spending here, here, and here results in X amount, it's not quite that formulaic. I do know right now that that's what's working for us so we'll continue to do it. If I start to see a drop off, we'll look at what maybe isn't working and what we could look to do down the track that might change. That's where we are. We initially didn't do any marketing other than organic.
We also had a bit of success when we started. Urban List or Broadsheet did a piece early on and that was huge. That wasn't paid for. What's happening in Melbourne, Sitchu, and Concrete Playground, if you can get your business onto those platforms, there's a credibility piece there as well and they're always looking for content.
If you can target those type of businesses, Broadsheet, etc., that's always going to be really good for your business. People will often say, “We saw you on Broadsheet. We came across you on Instagram.” Interestingly enough, things that maybe haven't worked, we did some advertising, some bridal magazines and stuff initially and that's not where our people are. We would very rarely get somebody say, “I saw you in this magazine or that magazine.”
We also, a couple of years ago, had this incredible opportunity. We partnered with the highest-rating morning radio program in Melbourne and they contacted us and said, “We’re going to do a Valentine's Day giveaway at The Altar Electric. We're going to do the episode on Valentine's Day live from the chapel with these big celebrities.” It was two weeks of 7:30 every morning saying, “Altar Electric giveaway. It's the hippest wedding chapel this side of Vegas.” You can't pay for that. The producers told us we effectively got 40,000 worth of free advertising. We were all like, “Here we go.” It was an incredible experience. I reckon you may have gotten a hundred followers from that. I don't know if you've got any bookings, Anthony.
No, we didn't get a booking or a lead.
That is going out to hundreds of thousands of listeners a morning. We didn't get much from that. That was interesting, a great experience. The other thing that's interesting about our business is it's not like buying a t-shirt so it's not like people hear about it and go, “Great, I'm just going to book that.” People will see your brand or hear about your brand and then memory bank it a bit. Maybe, down the track, someone will say, “We heard you on the radio.”
That is true because at the wedding I did, the bride said to me, “I saw your article on Urban List.” I said to myself, “If I was ever going to get married, that's where I'll get married.” She hadn't met her partner yet or anything like that. This was years ago and she followed us since she met her partner and they fell in love. They were from Sydney and they flew down for that. You're right, Sarah, we're not, “I need a t-shirt, I'll buy it now.” It's like, “I may have seen your brand and liked it but I'm not ready to get married yet so I can't purchase it,” or, “We're thinking about getting married but that's two years down the track.” It can take a while as well, which makes it a bit of a challenge.
Also, to small businesses, some advice would be to put yourself out there to radio and to TV because, as I said before, they're hungry for content and you never know who you are going to reach. We've been on the Today Show a few times and Sunrise and everyone's like, “That's amazing.” We never see a huge uptick in people contacting us but we always get a few random bookings, people in their 50s and 60s who are like, “We saw you.”
That was our first-ever wedding.
We're setting up this brand. We're going to get all these edgy hipsters coming in. Our first couple were, Jenny and Anthony, from regional Queensland. He saw us on Today's Show. They caught a cruise down to Melbourne to coincide with Melbourne Cup. They came down with their adult children and their partners and she walked into an Ed Sheeran song in a big puffy dress and it was the most amazing wedding but it's not who we thought would be our customer base. From that day, we have married everybody from surgeons to sex workers, bikies, builders, people from Broadmeadows, and people from Brighton, you name it. We're always surprised by who we reach.
I love it. There's so much in that. I had somebody who turned up for coaching and she's like, “I met you seven years ago,” when I did a talk at something. She's like, “Do you remember?” I didn't even have my business then, but I was like, “You're super inspiring.” She's like, “I know, once I get enough money, I will come and do coaching.” It's the same thing, you just never know who is listening and parking it. Speaking of marketing and things that work, Sarah, the TikTok guru that we have with us, which I love and I'm obsessed with TikTok as well.
I know lots of people reading this absolutely hate the platform or there are all the things going on with the US at the moment. There was exactly the same stuff going on this time in 2023 so let's see. What inspired you to get onto the TikTok platform and what advice would you have for other people who are reading or thinking, “This is just for kids,” or, “TikTok is not where our audience is.” That's the number one thing I hear all the time, “My audience isn't there.” I'm like, “Everybody is there.” You were so excited when we did coaching and you were like, “I'm going to get there.” You then were like, “We had people come in and they're booking because of TikTok.” Tell us about it.
I've been called many things but TikTok guru is not one of them. I don't profess to be any guru on it but I have had some fun on the platform. Like a lot of people, my enthusiasm waxes and wanes a bit with it because it's just another platform to get your messaging across on. I got on there because we must've done a workshop with Digital Picnic, who are an amazing company, which all small businesses are awesome.
Their founder, Cherie, came into talk with The Altar Electric and she said, “You've got to get on TikTok. The algorithm is nothing else. Give it a go.” I gave it a crack and I put a few videos up there and they didn't do that much but then I put one up and it went bananas. There were 2 or 3 that I did in a row that got 80,000 views and then 120,000 views. It opened ourselves up to a whole new audience. I remember listening somewhere, someone said, “You've got to think about TikTok as being like the engine room and Instagram's the shop.”
TikTok is casting this wide net and it's about shooting your brand out to as many people as possible and then the people that are interested will go across to Instagram and see what you offer. Instagram is a much more polished platform and TikTok rewards imperfection, which I'm a busy mom of three, and I love that. I can just pop something out there. I've got no recipe on what works and what doesn't. Sometimes, I spend ages. This is your experience but I'll spend ages editing something and gets 400 views. I do something in 15 minutes, 20,000. It's wild.
We always notice when we do have a video that performs well, we do get a huge uptick in our Instagram followers. Anthony works with a lot of Gen Zs, younger people, and they're like, “This is on TikTok.” We had this mom and daughter come into the chapel, they just walked past, they knocked on the door, and they were from Hawthorne or something. She's like, “Mom, this is the place I was telling you about. I saw it on TikTok.” She's like, “Fabulous. This is amazing. Why wouldn't you get married here?” I don't think they would have found us otherwise.
If people are thinking about TikTok, get on there and give it a crack because the algorithm does send you out far and wide. That said, when I look at the audience, they've got good analytics as well. You can really see where your people are. Most of our videos go out to Melbourne, the 25 to 34 age bracket. We marry people from every bracket but that's our bread and butter, people in that bracket. Your audience is there, they're on TikTok, and I would recommend people get on there and have a go because you've got nothing to lose.
I agree. One of the things I love about TikTok is I have clients who've gone on there and they've grown and they've got tens of thousands of followers. I've had so many conversations with people who've bought my book and I've got 500 followers. It's not like you need 20,000 to get somewhere. A lot of these people, when they've messaged about the book, they're from the US firstly and I can see because I'll drive them to a particular website in the US and I can see 11 books left. They're like, “I'll just buy it now,” and it's like, “Nine books left. eight books left.” I'm like, “They're really buying it and this is just a conversation.” Also, when I look at their profiles, I'm like, “They would never have found me through any other platform, I don't feel like.”
I do feel like I can put out some amazing reels on Instagram and I might get 4,000 views or something on that but if I put something on TikTok, and 4,000 views is low, it's so easier to get a bigger reach. There are some great tools like CapCut or templates you can use as well. It's pretty user-friendly, I find as well. I am very intuitive. It is a bit mind-numbing sometimes but it's good for business and it's free so it's always handy.
It's amazing. I was going to ask about it when you mentioned that a girl came in with her mom. Your parents, for a lot of people, especially in that younger age group, are crucial for a wedding. A lot of the time, they are paying for part of the wedding. With this competitive industry and one that's quite conservative, a lot of people still get married in a winery, a church, or a garden. It's quite reserved, I guess. How did you educate potential clients around making this wedding unique, cool, and interesting and also, their parents, if the parents are a huge influence on where they get married and their budget?
First of all, with parents, seeing is believing. If they're sceptical, they're sceptical all the way until the day. You can't educate them too much other than their kids will be very committed to the idea of getting married with us and that’s what's going to happen. By the end of that wedding, those parents wrote to us. If you go to our reviews, you’ll see parents writing, “I was so sceptical. I didn't know what I was in for but I was so glad I was wrong.” They turn around.
There are certain people out there that no matter what you say or put across, for them it’s seeing is believing. The proof is in the eating so you have to just let them eat the pudding and let that happen. We've been good and clear in our branding as to what we're about and who we're for. That's not where for a particular archetype of hipsters from Brunswick that are covered in tats and passionate vegans. We get them but it's about saying, “What's important for you for your wedding and what would you like your wedding experience to be because this is what we have,” and then you marry to that.
That's what you're bringing together. Being very clear in your message and putting it out, that means you're going to bring in those right kinds of people to your business is the first point. You're educating them through osmosis, if you will. You're being very clear about what you will offer and that's meeting their needs and they align and they come to you. I don't think we're about going out there to try and talk to people and say, “There's another way to get married. This is what it looks like. You don't have those options.” That could be a very frustrating way.
As Sarah said, we did advertise where some of those winery people might be looking and it never came our way. We knew that they're not our people so we’re not over there. That's one part of it but also, attitudes are shifting for weddings now. Couples live together now. Most people, when you marry them, they've lived together for 5 or 6 years.
Sometimes they've already got a kid, they've already got pets, or they've already got their mortgage. The commitment has already been made. The wedding is about an opportunity to celebrate that commitment, not to form that commitment. Now that a lot of that has changed, people are more looking for the celebration and wanting that side of it as opposed to the formal part of their wedding.
At the end of the day, almost every week, there are grandparents, and parents that walk into the space and you can see it on their faces, they're like, “What have I just walked into? This is not like anything I've ever seen.” You can see the trepidation. At the end of the day, it is all about incredible customer service. We always know our couple's parent’s names, we know their grandparent’s names, and we make a massive deal of them.
In a nice way, as soon as they walk in the door, I'm like, “Judy, it's Sarah. What a great day for you?” There's a skill to it but people want to feel comfortable and we do our best just to disarm people just by being nice to them and treating them like a person and not just someone coming through the door. As soon as they walk in, “Here's a drink. You did like it? Do you want me to take that for you? Fantastic. You must be so excited about today.”
All people want for their kids, at the end of the day, no matter how conservative they are, they want to see that their kids are being looked after and celebrated. Whether you are from an ultra-religious background or a completely different cultural background, when you see your kids being looked after and being treated like absolute superstars for the half hour, the hour, or the two hours they're there, that makes a parent melt on the spot.
When couples leave, the couples always give us a cuddle, but the people that always embrace us the firmest are the grandparents and the parents. They hold our hands with tears in their eyes and say, “Thank you for doing that for my child. This has been the most transformative experience when you do have an incredible ceremony that's personal that you can see your kids are crying and they're so moved by it.”
Because we marry all types of people, you can see that, for some parents, probably never thought their kid would find someone and yet here they are. They are having a celebration that makes them feel like rock stars. How can you not be swept up in that? We marry people from very different cultural backgrounds. We say, “If you want to do a Hindu blessing, please, let's bring that in. Let's get all the Macedonian music on. Let's do that.” Any tradition you need, let's bring it into the ceremony.
It goes back to that original message we said about positivity, that's what we're about. Yes, we understand maybe some people might have reservations or different ideas. Feedback is a gift. If that's what they've got, don't get offended and get your nose out of joint and think, “Why not?” Think about it and be positive in response to that and you'll only get a positive response back.
I will also say there is one grandma who recommends The Altar Electric to all her grandkids. We married one of her grandkids in our very first little faux chapel in Melbourne and she was blown away. She said, “I've never been so moved in ten minutes in my life.” We married the next grandchild at our chapel in Collingwood. We've married another grandchild in Abbotsford. She's like, “I don't know why anyone would do anything else.” She's in her 80s so that's the best feedback we can get.
With the business, besides the three of you, who else has helped you in building it or growing it? Have you had mentors or other people who have come in or even a good accountant or legal people? Who's helped you with the business?
A lot of people and I don't think any of us are shy in tapping into our networks even like my husband, who works in finance. He's been amazing at setting up spreadsheets because he's a spreadsheet guru. Also, when we started out with our current venue, we had no idea about liquor licensing, or reaching out to people in hospitality whom we admired, and they were so helpful with suggestions about things like how to build a bar and where to put your dishwasher and stuff like that. We've leaned into those resources. We've also worked with some great mentors. We've worked with you, which has been helpful.
Thanks, guys.
To get someone with an objective viewpoint of your business is helpful.
To the point we were talking before, even with marketing, you could go off and learn Facebook ads yourself or Google ads yourself. I personally think that as a business owner, if that's not what your background is, I wouldn't be spending my time on that. Two brides who have been married with us in the past happen to have experience as Google ad people and as social media ad people. We've hired them to do our ads because they're great at that.
We just tell them what we want, we give them some of the creative, and then they go off and make that happen. We don't have to be in the details. We just read the report. Supplementing what you're not strong at with skills of what you can help grow your business is a great strategy. Trying to do it all yourself can sometimes be a bit of a pitfall. We've partnered with amazing people. Our accountants are great, they set us up, and all that stuff has been really good.
We also worked with a lawyer who specializes in events as well to make sure all our Ts and Cs are watertight, which is important. I love podcasts. I'm a big podcast girl. I always loved your podcast too. I’m plugging you.
Thank you.
I've got so many tips from your podcast for years.
Now, people are going to get tips from you.
I remember saying to Cribbes before we booked you in for coaching, I was like, “I love the podcast and I think we should get Fiona.” Someone else is Odette Barry. Her Hack Your Own PR podcast, which I've been listening to since that started. I know she's been a guest on this podcast. She has the most incredible podcast guests, which can help you pitch your business to the media and get you seen. A lot of what she talks about is common sense but it's validating to hear these guests say, “This is how you should go about it.”
People always say to us, “Who does your PR?” We do it all ourselves. Listening to her podcast has given me heaps of ideas. Another podcast that is useful for me is Shameless Podcast, which is targeted at people a bit younger than me. Because I often marry people a bit younger than me, I've got to be up with the zeitgeist. In Particular, I do all the socials and comms so I need to be able to speak the language and be up with what's happening in people's world when they're between the ages of 25 and 35, which believe it or not, I'm not anymore. Keeping myself relevant is important.
I love this so much. I know that you guys also have a bunch of tools and platforms and stuff. I remember when I was coaching one time and then Anthony was like, “Let me just share my screen.” It was like, “What is this?” His mirror board was amazing. Can you talk us through any particular books or platforms or tech tools that are also helpful, especially when there are three of you like communicating and everything else?
Our CRM is pretty vital for us. We use Studio Ninja, where everything happens through Studio Ninja and we can all access it at any time and get all the information we need about our couples. That also sends out a whole lot of great emails.
It's got all the workflows in it and everything. We picked Studio Ninja because whilst it might not be the most feature-rich CRM platform, it's got a very simple, easy-to-use interface. It's very configurable and it's fast and quick and you can do a lot with it. Sometimes, picking a tool for your business is not about picking the best in the market, it's about picking the one that makes the most sense for your business as well. Some of our processes are still a bit manual. We use Acuity. When people want to book their wedding, they book it online using Acuity and then we have to manually copy and paste that over into Studio Ninja.
We use Google Sheets to track some revenue and forecast numbers and stuff like that. It works for our business. We could get more sophisticated but I feel like we would make it more complicated than it needed to be if we tried to and we'd get ourselves in knots. Picking the right size, a complex tool for your businesses is a smart investment too. I've looked at some of the others and maybe down the track, we might change but for now, that's what works. That's what's really helpful. To be honest, the most powerful tool we have in business is iMessage, the three of us in a message chat just pinging each other constantly.
It's a little bit overwhelming at times, to be honest.
I know it seems very basic but it works.
There's only three of us. It's easy to search for something that we've spoken about. It's easy to search for the message and find it. It’s not high-tech tech but it works for us.
It's like the Wizard of Oz, peep behind the curtain, there's not much there, but it works.
I love it. I love that you said not to get caught up in all the bells and whistles. We always use Trello. All of our coaching clients use Trello. Whenever people are like, “You should use ClickUp, Notion, or Monday.” I'm like, “Trello is super easy for people to understand. It is easy. You don't need a great tech understanding.” With all of everything you've just said, besides using iMessage, what other advice would you give to small business owners, especially those in the wedding industry or the events industry or something where there's a live component based on your experiences with The Altar Electric?
I would say one of the most important things, particularly for the wedding industry, which can be quite a crowded industry. There can be a tendency for people when they come in, they go, “I've got to be different. I've got to be loud. I've got to shout. I've got to be out there.” That's fine if that's your personality, you should totally tap into that.
If you are not a loud and out-there person, you don't need to be someone that you're not to make an impact. You are in the service industry and you want to connect with people so you're not going to connect if you're not being your true self. Even if you feel like you need to be loud to stand out, you don't, you actually just need to be yourself because it is a big market and there will be a client who wants somebody like that.
Sarah hit on it too, especially in the wedding industry, we are in a service-based business so you need to be mindful about that. As long as you're very good at taking care of what your core product is and it is a good product and you stand behind it and you know that you created it for a reason and that it will bring value to people's lives and their wedding day, as long as you stick to that and always look after that side of it, I'm a big believer that cream will always rise to the top.
It may take you a little bit longer but there's that great proverb that there are many paths at the top of the mountain but the view is always the same. That's really important. Focus on that. Focus that you are bringing something of value, that it is something you stand behind, and that you believe in it and the rest of it should flow.
The other thing I would say as well is a quote that I always find useful and it was from the founder of LinkedIn and it said, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you launched too late.” When I look back at Altar Electric OG, we had no idea what we were doing. We were just fumbling in the dark, working things out as we went. What it looks like today is vastly different from the setup we had initially, which was a neon sign that we'd run up these stairs and hang on a wall.
We were getting there five minutes before our couples would hang this neon sign and act like we'd been there all day.
If we waited for perfection, we just wouldn't have done it. We just got it out there. We've got a website out there. Cribbes is good at making things happen. Dee and I are better at going through it and making sure he's crossed his Ts. Get it out there. You've got nothing to lose. Perfection is a myth. It's never going to be perfect. Your business is always evolving. Get it out there. If it's a great idea, it will grow.
It has entirely grown. Many of those quotes, I'm going to come back to. Watch this space because there'll be quote cards all over our Instagram from The Altar Electric. What are you both most proud of from the journey in business so far?
I was thinking about this question. There are some tangible moments to be proud of. We were finalists in the Telstra Business Awards in 2023, which was an incredible moment for the business. This might sound cheesy but I feel enormous pride, genuinely, after every single wedding we do in the chapel. They are all so vastly different. I often have this moment and it always makes me cry when I talk about it but I have this moment where I'm standing at the bar, the couple are married, they're with their favourite people, they're on the dance floor, the DJs are doing their thing, the disco ball is spinning, and the lights are flashing. These people are almost in a state of rapture, they are having the best time of their life.
I have to take a breath and go, “I can't believe we've built this.” I cannot believe we've made this space where people from every walk of life feel like this can be their place to celebrate one of the most important things I'll ever do in their life. They're trusting us. We've built this place that is genuinely the happiest place on earth. There's so much bad stuff going on in the world. To be able to come to work in inverted commas and stand alongside people as they lose themselves at the moment is such a privilege. I'm so proud that we've built this space where everyone feels that it could be their space and it is their space. That's what I'm most proud of, a bit cheesy.
I love that. I love it so much.
For me, people from the outside might've seen our business grow. I'm, by no means, delusional to think that people have watched this. Most people reading this will have never heard of us before. Everyone puts their best base on social media forward. Every time you look at someone's social media profile, you're always seeing the best side of it. Our business has been great but we've had some tough times. We didn't make money for three years and that's hard because we're putting in a lot of time and effort into this business that was paying for itself and paying to grow itself but wasn't paying us.
I'm proud of the fact that even though we were going through those moments and those challenges that we never gave up, that we always still believed in what we were going to do, and that we wanted to make it happen and we sort of stuck to it. We love each other and we've gone from strangers to that transition and our relationships haven't been tainted. We're still really good friends. We're still a really fun business. We still love going to work. We do all those things. The fact that we can have that business as well as know that we went through 3 or 4 years of tough times to try and get it going and stuck to it to see it at the other side, that's what I'm proud of.
I love you guys. That’s so nice. I said to Anthony when he got on first, “I miss you, guys.” It's wonderful. What is next for The Altar Electric and where can people connect with you?
The couples that come from Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, and internationally, they're always like, “When are you opening interstate?” It's always a conversation we're having. Watch this space. We would love to take the chapel on the road, so to speak. What's next? I don't know. There are seven weddings. I can't wait to marry all the couples that will be coming to the chapel.
You're like, “Let's just get through.”
I always say people head to our socials, TikTok or Instagram, if you want to get a sense of what the place feels like because we put a lot of footage up and you can see in real-time the magic that happens. Our website is TheAltarElectric.com.au, like and subscribe.
We should also mention that you offer the space for other things outside of weddings like wedding renewals and vows.
Vow renewals and funerals. We had a funeral for people that have lived their lives in colour. It's a pretty beautiful space to send people off. Also, we do rent the space out for shoots and off-sites as well. We have a lot of people coming in and using the space for all sorts of things.
Thank you so much for giving up your time and everything else and all the insights and tips. It's been amazing. You guys have such a cool brand and I am excited to bring it out. Thank you so much.
Thanks. Bye.
Bye.
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There was so much in that chat from marketing and mindset through to confidence and how to set up your systems and so much more. I want to say a massive thank you again to Sarah and Anthony for giving up their time and working with me on the internet issues but also delivering so many practical insights. I know that when I was recording it with them, I had so much to think about afterwards even though I've known these guys for a while, we did a lot of business coaching together and I know their business pretty well. They just have so much knowledge to share so I want to say thank you for that.
I'd love to know what you took away from that and, of course, I'm sure they would love to know. You can always reach out to them via their socials, which is @TheAltarElectric. You can also find all of their packages, their galleries, and all the different things over at TheAltarElectric.com.au. Of course, you can find @TheAltarElectric on TikTok as well.
I'd love to know what you took away from this. I'm going to highlight two things, as always. The first is I loved that they talked about dialling up the positive and they talked about erring on the side of good intent. They are in a space, weddings, where people are joyful, it's a celebration. When you talk to the three of them, Dee, Sarah, and Anthony, they're always so upbeat, and positive. They have that half-glass-full mentality and it's obvious, It comes across in everything that they do in their business and just them as people. I love that they talked about that.
In business, particularly if you're having a bit of a slow month or things aren't picking up the way that they normally are or maybe somebody said something to you on social or you've had a customer complaint or something like that, it is very easy to then take that lens of negativity and look at other things in your business through that lens or other things in general. There's so much negative going on in the world right now.
I love that idea of, “How can we err on the side of the positive? How can we practice positive intent and not looking for the negative but intentionally seek out the joy and the positive? Where's the solution here? Let's not just focus on the problem. Let's focus on the solution.” I love that. It's a good reminder for people, no matter where you are in business or life for that matter, to err on the side of the positive as much as you can.
The second thing, and of course, I'm going to say this because it's a large part of what I work with people on, is when they talked about the DJ being late or something stuffing up that because their systems and processes are so tight, they were able to rectify that situation straight away without anybody noticing. That is what they focused so much on that the experience is incredible, end-to-end, because there are all these systems and processes in place.
Often, I work with people and they're like, “It works well enough. Why do we need to change up our systems and processes?” These are the things that can undo an incredible business. In our own business, there are so many systems and processes that we're constantly finessing or tweaking or have down that we need to improve on because that is it.
A huge part of what we enjoy about a brand is the experience and that could be whether we're buying a service or a product or something else. If the experience is incredible and seamless, it gives us a better feeling about the whole brand. Even if the product was incredible, it doesn't matter so much, it takes a lot of the shine off if we have a crappy experience because the systems and processes aren't there to support it. I love that so much.
If you are looking to work on your systems and processes, we do have a course on that. this is what I work with a lot of people on. You can always book in for a one-on-one coaching session if you want to look at that. I love that so much. Also, reiteration that has been such a crucial part of their business, understanding the systems and processes, understanding what is the customer journey and what marketing messages and guidance and human connection do our clients need at every stage of that. These guys exemplify a great brand from so many different angles, particularly the systems and processes.
That is it for this interview episode. If you found this useful, I would love it so much if you could share it with a friend or share it with your audience, please remember to tag us, @MyDailyBusiness_, on Instagram or, @MyDailyBusiness, on TikTok so we don't miss it. Of course, I know the guys from The Altar Electric would love to hear from you. You can check out all of the things that they have going on, including how to book your very own wedding or vow renewal or something else at TheAltarElectric.com.au. Their socials are @TheAltarElectric. Thanks for reading. I'll see you next episode. Bye.
