Own Your Business

Everyone in the wedding industry wants to level up their business. So it's not a matter of if, it’s more how. 

How do you pick the right kind of client? How do you align yourself with the right kind of professional in your network? How do you prioritize all the different tasks that need to be done as the boss? How do you allocate your time, money, energy, and resources to get from where you are to where you want to be?

Today I bring on my friend and client Julian Leaver, to talk about his journey over the last decade building a wedding business that targeted very specific ideal clients in three distinct phases as he grew his company.

We dive into:

• What kind of ideal client he started with when his business got going

• When he knew that it was time to level up

• Why he chose to pursue a safer path with more steps rather than make big leaps

• How he found that fast is slow and slow is smooth when it comes to elevating your brand

If you're looking for real talk about what it's like to level up your business from someone who made the moves over the last decade, this is a conversation you don't wanna miss.

Many business owners in the wedding industry got their start accidentally. Others found their way here because of a passion for creativity or art, and wanted to express it as a profession.

But there are a handful of others who had a dream of being an entrepreneur, and found the wedding space as fertile ground for planning the seeds of their business ideas.

Today's guest, Brittany Lo, founder and owner of Beautini and Beia, joins me on the podcast to discuss her journey as an entrepreneur over the last decade, including:

• How she delegates work to a team in order to grow her business

• What she spends most of her time on as the CEO of the companies

• Where she seeks guidance and support when she's expected to have all the answers

• Recommendations for spending more of your time working on the business rather than in business

If you wanna take your company to the next level, you have to know how to be a boss. Brittany shares exactly how to do that.

Who wants more time back for personal life? Or maybe you want to spend more time doing things you love with your business rather than things you don't or things that are difficult?

The key to making these things happen is freeing up room in your calendar by getting other people to do work for you. 

One of the best ways to bring in somebody to help take care of miscellaneous tasks that are under your pay grade or you don't like doing - or both - is to hire a VA. Where do you begin? And how do you find the right one? And what do you have them work on?

Today, I sit down with Katie Hendricks, owner of the VA agency, Masterfully Managed, who runs a team of VAs for luxury wedding vendors who want to spend more time doing what they love and less time stressed about the details they don’t want to worry about.

You’ll learn:

• When is it time to consider a VA?

• How could you tell which VA will be the right fit for you?

• What kind of work can a VA help with?

• Are there any red flags to watch out for when hiring or assigned to a new VA?

When I ask clients: What does success look like to you? I get a variety of responses. The two most popular are, 1) I want to move into the luxury market, and 2) I want to scale my business to include a team.

We spend a lot of time on the podcast talking about how to move into the luxury market, but not nearly as much time exploring what it looks like to scale your business with the team.

This week I bring in Taryn Blake, one of our clients who found wild success in all the places most people tend to struggle.

In our conversation we cover:

• What motivated her to build a team in the first place

• How she kept quality standards at the forefront in her strategy

• The roles in the company that she spends most of our time on

• Her version of a solid company culture

If you've ever considered growing your team beyond just yourself, this is the perfect episode to see what it's like from somebody else's proven path.

Many of you work directly with your spouse - and if you do, you know it’s not always easy. 

Today, I chat with Jessica and Michael Masi, who co-lead Masi Events, one of the top wedding planners by Over the Moon. We explore:

• Why they decided to partner in business, not just life

• How they divide client-facing and BTS work

• What they learned about themselves over the years to make it better to work together

• Specific recommendations to release pressure when times get tense

Even if you don’t work with your spouse, the insights we discuss are a good way to divide and conquer with anyone on your team as you learn your own role as the boss of your business.

The recent and current market conditions are tough to navigate. I wish things were different for the wedding industry right now, but they are not. I always provided advice on how to market and sell your services to book more ideal clients at higher prices, and I know many listeners benefit from the tactics that we talk about.

It’s not “business as usual” right now - and so I’m taking a break from regular programming to address the elephant in the room more directly.

Trial and error is very very unforgiving in tough times. You might not get a chance to learn from your mistakes if you make too many of them. In good times you have a safety net. But not now. You’ve got to play it smart and do so as early as possible when you sense difficult times ahead.

Three things today:

1. Expectations for the near term

2. Financial moves you can make

3. Strategies to consider for the next 3-6 months

Wouldn’t it be great to get inside the mind of couples doing research for their wedding plans?

Until that happens, monitoring their online behavior is the best we can do. 

Today, I bring in co-founder and CEO of PartySlate, Julie Novack, to share insights and data based on millions of visitors to their site. She shares:

• What kind of content to share in the early stages of the buyer’s journey

• What couples want to see immediately when they land on your site

• And we discuss the current market conditions and what to expect in the short- and mid-term 

Julie’s studied buyer behavior in digital spaces for decades. Let’s hear what she has to say about what tomorrow’s couples want from your marketing efforts.

Today's wedding client is not interested in yesterday's celebrations - and today's wedding business owner should adapt accordingly.

But how do you change things up? What areas do you focus on? How do you know if it will work?

Well, there's not one simple answer for any or all businesses to these questions. It depends very much on a number of different factors, but they all start with knowing yourself and what you stand for and what you want. If you don't know these things you can’t take the first step, let alone reach success.

In this episode of Own Your Business, I bring on Elizabeth McKellar, the founder and principal planner for The Nouveau Romantics, to discuss what it's like to operate your business with a sense of integrity and authenticity.

Learn to think deeply about yourself and your business, so you can avoid the mistakes she made and capitalize on the wisdom she’s gained along the way.

Too many wedding pros spend their time trying to fake it till they make it. Not only is it a slow way to success, it’s stressful - what if “they” find out?

One problem - and I mean only one of the many many many problems with “winging it” as a business owner - is that you end up guessing your way through important situations. 

• How do you raise your prices?

• When and how do you rebrand?

• When and how do you talk about pricing?

• What’s your social media strategy?

• And where do you focus your limited energy when pulled in so many different directions?

Today, I talk about how the collective wisdom of the wedding industry often points you in the wrong direction on these important topics.

Stay tuned as I bust these myths you’ve probably heard.

People don’t want information, they want transformation.

And the best way to do that is to share a story with a beginning, middle and end that follows a narrative arc. It hooks them, draws them in even more, and then builds desire to learn the outcome.

In today’s attention economy, stories are a very successful way to communicate with potential customers. To market and sell your services.

In this episode, I’ll share:

• 3 key elements of a great story

• 6 ways you can implement stories in your own marketing and sales material

• 2 things you can do today to start telling stories your clients and professional network actually want to hear