Own Your Business

Finances are one of the most important parts of owning your own business. And they’re also one of the scariest, too. But like most things in life that we’re afraid of, it's because we don’t know how easy it can be to do.

In this week’s episode of Own Your Business, I sit down with finance expert, Katelyn Magnuson, to discuss:

- What holds you back from feeling confident about managing your business’s finances

- 3 big mistakes owners make with their money

- What you can DIY, and what you should outsource

- Ways to get your books done without stressing yourself out

We all talk a lot about “ideal clients.” Wouldn’t it be nice if they were all ideal? Too bad they’re not, because, let’s be honest: Those who inquire run the gamut from perfect fits to completely awful. Some couples are dream clients. Other people are good…just not good for you.

In this episode of Own Your Business, I’m going to share with you:

- 4 different buyer types

- What motivates each one

- What you have to change to book more than only your “ideal” client

- What clues to pay attention to if you can afford to be more selective about who you work with

A great way to make more money is to sell more services to each couple who hires you. Unfortunately, what most people do is either a) stuff their packages with more services, or b) offer a la carte options on top of the packages. But both of these options consistently backfire with your buyers.

On this week’s episode of Own Your Business, I’ll tell you:

- How to get more from every date on your calendar, including couples who already booked

- Three psychological principles that encourage couples to spend more

- What NOT to do on your proposals because it’s causing interested buyers to ghost you

It’s tough for couples to pick all the vendors they need for their wedding. It could be 20, maybe 30 or more. And that means a ton of research to find the right ones. Reviews and other forms of social proof help potential clients cut through the noise and reduce the risk in choosing you over others.

But it’s not easy to get clients to take the time to leave you a review. And even if they do, it’s not always meaningful. In this week’s episode of Own Your Business, I dive into:

- What keeps couples from leaving you a review

- Why it’s so important to get them in the first place

- 8 practical tips to get make it easy to get them to fill out the form and post the review

Humans make 35,000 decisions every day. Most of them are made automatically without even thinking. The very small percentage that use conscious thought require lots of energy, and, if too many need to be made, can lead to decision-fatigue.

Is your sales process making it easier or harder for couples to decide on your services? My guess is you’re sabotaging your own success in ways you didn’t even know. In this episode of Own Your Business, I’ll tell you:

- How our brains are wired to make choices

- 2 ways of thinking about decisions

- 3 common mistakes that lead couples to analysis paralysis

Tired of running out of hours in the day? Or days in the week? Or months in the year? Katy and I like to say the days are long and the months are short, because we always feel like we’re doing so much, but it’s never enough time.

In this week’s episode of Own Your Business, I share my insights on how to free up more time to spend on priorities for your company. I’ll cover:

- My #1 tip to increase your productivity

- Why we become less effective the more we have on our plates

- 6 practical ways to say no more often

We’ve all heard the phrase, It’s a marathon not a sprint. But it’s not just about slowing things down. It’s also about going the distance. Many wedding pros start off at a breakneck pace, but don’t know how to take it down a notch. Even seasoned professionals still get stuck at high speed each year during peak season.

If you want a career that lasts - and you love doing it everyday, no matter what time of year - you have to operate with principles for long-term success. In this week’s episode of Own Your Business, I share:

- How booking too much business can sink your success

- 8 principles I learned actually running a marathon

- Practical ways to apply it all to your business this peak season

Do you dread peak wedding season? That time of the year when you have more work to do than hours in the day? It seems like no matter what you do to streamline your workflows or hire help to get you through, it just doesn’t work.

In this week’s episode of Own Your Business, I’ll explore how to create a “place of bliss” in your business. We’ll explore:

- How three different pieces create long-term success in your business

- Ways to make more money with less effort

- The one thing you have to know if you want to prevent burnout during peak season

We all start our companies for different reasons. What’s yours? Even more important to know - very, very clearly - is why you’re still driven to keep it going today. It’s easy to get distracted by what motivates others in their business. Or keep running in place on the hamster wheel that you’ve created for yourself. But the sooner you connect with what drives you the faster you can build a strategy for your company that’s viable in the long run.

In this episode of Own Your Business, I’ll share:

- Nine psychological motivations that influence human decisions

- How to identify what drives you as a business owner

- Why it’s important to keep it at the forefront of your long-term strategy

Blogging is not dead. In fact, it’s quite alive with your ideal clients. Why? Because when people want answers to their questions, they don’t go to your Home page or your About page or even your services page. That’s for later in the buyer’s journey. When couples are starting out their search for wedding vendors, they’re plugging in questions to Google and scanning the articles that come up. Those articles are almost always posts about specialized topics (aka: blogs).

In this week’s episode of Own Your Business, Katy and I talk about:

- How to create a blog with evergreen content

- What stage of awareness in the buyer’s journey to direct your posts

- Criteria for a successful blog, including how often to post and how long each post should be

- Ways to generate ideas for blog content that’ll hook your ideal clients