{EP45}: Planning Strategic Money Decisions with Michelle Loretta

In this episode, I'm joined by wedding industry thought-leader, Michelle Loretta of Sage Wedding Pros. We are talking MONEY - one of my fave topics - and specifically, how to make some big decisions about what do with the money in your wedding business when it comes to achieving your goals. 

Michelle shares some really, really important and valuable tips throughout this episode, and I strongly encourage listeners to check out her incredible programs and courses - she's the real deal, my friends!

Links:
Wedding Planner Survey
Profit & Purpose Waiting List
SageWeddingPros

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Facebook Group: The Wedpreneur Community
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Website: www.thewedpreneur.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

This is your host Mary SUA field and welcome to the web preneur podcast. Join me and my guests each week as I take a deep dive into wedding business. Best practices, examine challenges facing our industry and interview wedding industry experts and thought leaders who will share their strategies for taking your wedding business to the next level. Whether you're new in the industry or a seasoned pro, each episode is filled with valuable information aimed to help you build and grow the wedding business that you are dreaming about. I'm ready if you are, so let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:36

[inaudible]

Speaker 3: 0:39

Hey friends. Welcome to another episode of the web preneur podcast. I'm your host Mary's spa field today. I am thrilled to bring you an interview with one of the thought leaders in our industry and Michelle, Loretta. As I mentioned a few episodes ago, I'm really focused on the money in my business this year. I have set some pretty audacious goals and I'm so determined to meet them. I'm also determined to finally finish updating my pricing chorus, which used to be called the pricing lab, but will be relaunched this year even bigger and better as profit and purpose. By the way, you can get on the wait list by heading to the web printer.com and clicking on programs. I encourage you to do so, so in today's episode we're focusing on planning strategic financial decisions. This is a really, really important episode. We've talked on the podcast before about pricing and understanding your numbers, both really important topics, but today we're focused on what to do with the money in your business and how to make those decisions. Now, before we dive in, I have a favor to ask of you. So this March I'm going to be presenting a session at the special event conference in Las Vegas, specifically on the topic of the risks and rewards of wedding management. Now, obviously this is specifically geared towards wedding planners, but hold on. If you're not a wedding planner, I still have a favor for you. I'm doing some market research regarding the service, the wedding management service, or as some people call it, wedding month management or day of coordination. So if you're a wedding planner, I need your input. All I need you to do is to go to the web printer.com/survey and take five minutes to answer some questions about your experiences with this service. Now, if you're not a wedding planner, you can still help out by sending this link to any of your wedding planning colleagues. This is so important you guys because I really want to present some very robust findings during my presentation. I'm also going to be presenting the results after the event is wrapped up in the web printer community. So if you don't know, that's my free Facebook group for wedding pros. So will you do me a solid and fill it out again, you can find it at the web preneur.com/survey thank you so much in advance. Now let me introduce you to my friend Michelle, Loretta. Michelle. Loretta is a business consultant, financial strategist for wedding and event professionals. As founder of Sage wedding pros, she blends her past as an accountant for Deloitte, a sales and marketing manager for DDI, DLA, a merchandiser for coach and a stationary entrepreneur to strengthen wedding businesses worldwide. Sage wedding pro pros produces the next level summit be stage conferences. Michelle has been asked to speak at a number of industry conferences including NACE experience, BizBash live and the special event. All right, my friends, I can't wait to share this one with you. Let's go right to the interview. Hi Michelle. Welcome to the smart business for wedding pros podcast.

Speaker 4: 3:35

Hi Mary. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you.

Speaker 3: 3:40

I know I, I was thrilled when I saw your name come through to speak on the podcast because, um, Michelle and I were roommates actually at the special event conference so many years ago, so long ago I was pregnant. I remember with my fucking kid, that's how long ago was. That was a, that was a really fun, special event. That was really, really fun. So I'm so thrilled to have you on the show today and we are going to be talking about one of my favorite topics of all time. I know not everybody feels that way about the money in their business, but I love talking about it and I think it's really important to talk about it. But before we do that, can you tell us about your journey in the wedding industry?

Speaker 4: 4:23

Yes. Um, so I started out in the wedding industry, uh, as a stationer wedding stationary. I S I launched my stationary business in 2004 so that was about 15 years ago. And, um, I, I always say I was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing for the market in Seattle at that time. And then in 2009, I started writing a business blog for the industry. At that time, there weren't a lot of people showing, you know, the business side of things, um, the financial side of things, marketing strategies. And so in an effort to connect with more people nationwide, uh, and, and draw more people, really the, the initial focus was to get more stationary business, but little by little people started asking for more and more help. And a lot of that help stemmed from one of the first series that we wrote on business planning. Um, and really got people talking about business planning in the industry and then Sage wedding pros initially or eventually evolved into the consulting business that it is now. So that's how I got into the wedding industry

Speaker 3: 5:29

that's in a wet and I will say back then way back in 2009, there really weren't many blogs or resources or anything. And I remember I stocked your blog all the time. I subscribed to it and I was like, finally there's somebody out here talking about the business of weddings. And uh, it was amazing. So you have been essentially like a, a thought leader in our industry and a mentor to many. So I'm so thrilled that you're here today.

Speaker 4: 5:59

Oh my gosh. Well, I'm so excited to be here. I love when I hear people are like, I remember in 2009 I started reading your blog post because I think about that time when I started in, Oh, it kind of, it feels really exciting to think back on that time, those early days of waking up early and writing blog posts. Well I now,

Speaker 3: 6:19

so you know, there's so much available to everybody, which I think is fantastic, but it's so great. It is, it is so great. It can be overwhelming. I will say like I find that a lot of my clients feel somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that's available for them now. But yes. But it's still great.

Speaker 4: 6:38

Yeah. So not having enough. Yeah, for sure. Yeah,

Speaker 3: 6:42

exactly. So today we are going to be talking about planning strategic money decisions. So I know that this is something that you are super passionate about and um, how did you come to sort of focus on the financial aspect of wedding businesses?

Speaker 4: 6:58

Yeah, well before I got into this industry, that was my field. I studied accounting in college. I worked for a big accounting firm, Deloitte outside of college. And, um, in my years there, I feel like that was the greatest foundation first as you know, in my stationary business, but then eventually coaching and consulting people on financial strategies in this industry. Because if you know how many runs in and out of your business, you can do pretty much anything. I mean, I feel like that's one big hurdle that a lot of people have in this industry is that they not, they don't really understand that. So based on that background that I have in that field, I, I, I saw that and I, I, after helping people writing business plans for a few years, I said, this is a really big piece of the business plan that people keep coming back to as a big question Mark. Um, and I, I, you know, I'm going to be honest, a lot of people don't earn anything in this industry or not enough, or they're not taking home what they'd like or they're working too hard for the little that they are making. Um, so that's why I started shifting gears more and more towards, um, the financial strategy piece of guiding this

Speaker 3: 8:13

ours. Yeah. And I, that's amazing because I agree. I think that it shocks me to this day, even after 11 years of hearing, you know, what the average income that people are making in this business is. And, and I think that there's a vast difference between those who pay a lot of attention and take the time to understand the finances and their business and those who just sort of hope and pray, which I'll be really Frank, the first couple of years of my business, I was in that hope and break.

Speaker 4: 8:46

Yeah. And you know what? I think that's normal because let's, let's be honest here, most of us start this business as a hobby. I started stationary business as a hobby. Now I, I knew I wanted to make it a real deal thing, so I had to figure it out really fast, how to get the pennies together. But, um, you know, if you're starting it with that intention, that's great. But it initially the goal isn't always a financial goal. It's to express ourselves and to be artistic and creative. And maybe we're not getting that opportunity in our day jobs or, um, we haven't found that job that allows us to be artistic in our field or to create events for people. And so, so, so we don't start these businesses because we want to be millionaires. I mean, this is not the field for millionaires. This is the field for artists. These are people who are incredibly talented, are pulling people in events together. And so because finances is not the, you know, the precursor in that decision making, um, I think a lot of people create a foundation in their business where it's not important. Um, but like you said, after a couple of years in your own business, you start to realize, Oh my gosh, I am working way too hard to not be paying attention to this side of the business.

Speaker 3: 10:06

Yeah. I thought that was the big wake up call because even though, I mean I was very, very lucky, even in the first few years of my business, I had a lot of clients and I had, I learned pretty quickly to charge I think a more appropriate amount that I initially thought that I was going to be. But then I think in part because we love what we do so much, we're willing to work such long hours. So I was definitely working, you know, 1214 hours a day just because I loved it so much. And so even though I was making money, like in my bank account showed that I had revenue coming in, I didn't really put two and two together. That when I looked at how much time I was actually spending, I actually wasn't really making money. Yeah,

Speaker 4: 10:50

yeah. Well, and even if you are earning, then you know, what's the next decision? It's like, well, well what do I do with this money? Right? Um, you know, am I spending on the business? Am I, am I learning how to scale and my learning how to hire people? Am I withdrawing from these earnings, which will, you know, a lot of times I look at a business and I, I'm looking at their finances and they're, they're not withdrawing, uh, at a healthy rate for what they're actually earning.

Speaker 3: 11:15

Yes, yes. Well, and I think that was the second, the second realization I came to was, okay, now that the business is bringing a lot of money in, I don't really know what to do with it. And, and because I had so many clients and the way I was charging my fees, I got very overwhelmed very quickly. So for me, really around that second year Mark, I was like, okay, this is clearly, you know, I'm blessed to be in a position where I can now do this full time, but I need to really figure out this money situation because it was scary. And I think when I talk to wedding pros, and I'm sure that you experienced this too, there's this fear around money and this fear around maybe handling it incorrectly or even a fear of talking about it to anybody. Like, do you find that people, what is holding people back from really diving into the financial,

Speaker 4: 12:06

Oh my gosh, there's, there's like a shame there. You know, there's, there's, um, there's several things I think, um, people see that as like the math side of the business and maybe they have like a traumatic math experience as, as children in school. And so they, um, are fearful of trying to figure out the quote unquote math side of it. But the reality is like, the math is like addition, subtraction. Like there's not a high level of, you know, calculations or anything like that going in there, but there's, there's the shame of, of not knowing, not, not being educated in that area. Um, and so people don't want to talk about it. It's like if I don't talk about it, it'll go away. Um, or I don't want to be judged based on the fact that I don't know this or I'm not performing as well. And I always try to remind people, like, there is no judgment here. Because when I see numbers, I don't see good and bad. I like there is not like, Oh, you, you spent too much on this computer. Like I don't, I don't see that at all. Um, I'm really, when I'm looking at some of these numbers, I'm constantly like digging for opportunities. Like where are the opportunities for this person to earn more to, you know, to have more, to be able to hire somebody, right? Like whatever though that person's goal is like, I'm trying, I'm seeking out those opportunities when I'm looking at numbers. Um, but it's, yeah, it's the shame. It's the fear of judgment. Um, it's the fear of failure, um, that, that people don't want to talk about money in. A lot of that also comes from like whatever your money mindset is with your personal finances. You carry that into your business finances as well.

Speaker 3: 13:47

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, I hope, and I know that you've been very effective at doing this in the industry. My hope always is that, you know, we start talking about it more and more and even we don't have to talk about our own personal numbers per se, but to talk about in the industry the importance of understanding pricing and understanding, you know, a profit and loss statement and really understanding the basics of, of running a business when it comes to your finances. Because I think once we open the door and people start feeling really safe about it and understanding that everybody is in the same boat there is.

Speaker 4: 14:26

Yes. Oh absolutely. And I, I think a lot of people think, um, you know, I can tell because they come to me nervous and maybe they have 10 years of experience and they don't know how to read a profit and loss. I'm going to tell you that that is something that I see more often than not. And the way that I look at it as like, well, now's the time to learn it. Who cares? If you've been in business for 10 years and you're just learning that now, it's okay. You know, you're, you're not an accountant. That's not your job. Your job is to produce events. Now it's good thing that you're coming in, whether you've been in business at two years, five years, or 10 years, and you're finally taking that step to learn the finances. Um, but I'm going to, you know, let your listeners know that there's a very small portion of people in industry that do understand that. So if you're not in a place where you understand your finances, you're not alone. Yes. Like don't let that fear of um, you know, not knowing or being ashamed that you haven't learned this stuff. Hold you back from getting that education cause it is really important, however long you've been in business.

Speaker 3: 15:33

Yes. And let's talk a little bit about why it's so important. So I know, for example, my partner, my boyfriend jewels, he has his own business as well. And he makes fun of me because I spend time every single month doing my finances and really looking at my cashflow and getting a really good understanding of, you know, what my month has been like and forecasting for the rest of the year. And he makes fun of me because he's like, he, his way of doing visits is, you know, the old school, I'm just going to shove everything into a folder and hand it to my account and my account is going to tell me, you know, if I'm having a good quarter or not. And um, and I think there's,

Speaker 4: 16:14

there's[inaudible]

Speaker 3: 16:15

a good that's, I mean that works for him, right? It completely works for him. But to me, I am a little more controlling and I just want to know what the, like I want to have my finger on the pulse of my business all the time. So what do you recommend for people? Like how much do they, how much should they know themselves versus how much should they,

Speaker 4: 16:35

Oh hand off to somebody else? Oh, that's such a great question. So, um, when you decided to open up your doors to start a business, you gave yourself a few roles. Um, one of them, a CEO of your business, which is basically the decision maker, the decider, the, you know, the, the visionary of where your company is going to go. The other role that you gave yourself is that of CFO and um, it's important to have a few people on your team, your finance team, you definitely want to have at the very minimum a tax accountant and that's somebody who's going to do your taxes on an annual basis. Sometimes they'll come in more often to give you tax guidance, but typically somebody who was hired to do your taxes, they specialize in tax and they're not really taking a look at that overarching strategy piece. In fact, if your business goes through changes, it's important to give your tax account, the heads up. Like, you know what, I just created my goals for next year and it looks like we're going to be up$50,000. I want you to know now so that we can plan for my tax payments next year. Right? It's important that you're very proactive with that conversation with your tax account because not on the analytical side of giving you guidance on growth and changes in scaling. Okay. Their job is very much to understand the tax code and um, and you know, try to save you money on taxes basically. Um, then you want to be thinking of a bookkeeper. Possibly not everybody needs a bookkeeper, but somebody needs to be doing the bookkeeping, right? Whether it's you or you outsource that. Um, and I would recommend that if you do outsource that, that you find somebody reputable that comes with really great recommendations. This is not a position that you want to give to your assistant or your VA who may not have a lot of experience with accounting. Now, bookkeeping and accounting isn't, you know, it's not rocket science, but at the same time I've seen far too many people's books get really screwed up because it's hasn't been set up right. It was started and implemented by somebody that doesn't have enough experience. And then the same mistakes keep happening every single month, right? So every time you see the same transaction, the gun, it gets recorded to the wrong to the wrong thing, right? So, um, and you know, those are your first two people that you want to be thinking about. And then your role as CFO, that's yours. You can't hand that off. Now you can hire somebody like me to help with the financial strategy piece. I always say, I'm like, I'm a CFO for hire. I can, you know, come in and hope you make that decision with your dollars and your money and give you, you know, the path forward. But ultimately, as the owner of your business, you're the CFO. So what does the CFO need to know? A CFO needs to know how to read their profit and loss, how to make decisions, how to be proactive with their sales projections or their sales goals. Um, how to be proactive with an expense budget. As the CFO, you're really creating that path forward for your business to earn, you know, in a healthy way to earn whatever it is that you want to earn as a business owner. Um, you can't, you can't outsource that. You can't outsource that position because that's, I mean, that's the backbone of your business. That's like 10 for like every decision comes from that, that role. Right. Um, so that's how I see the different roles. Um, I, you know, tax count, you definitely wanna outsource that you way complicated to have to take that in and bookkeeper. It depends on how many transactions you have. If you have tons of activity and, um, and if you have the budget for, right, if you can afford a bookkeeper, great, outsource that, but you still need to understand what's happening in your accounting so that you can make decisions. That CFO role, you can't really outsource it. You can get guidance from somebody, but it's, it's not something you can outsource. Hmm. I love that. I think, you know, I, for me personally, I was kind of lucky because I had done bookkeeping in my previous job. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:49

So I, I, I hated it, but, you know, I had the experience, so, you know, I find that, but even with that experience for the first couple of years, I really didn't, I didn't want to pay any attention to it. I was just having so much fun, you know, with my new business and I love the marketing side so much. So I was so focused on that. And, um, you know, I think, I think a misconception and, and let me know if you agree with me here that a lot of wedding pros have is that it's going to take a long time, you know, to get sort of up to speed with their finances every month, that it's going to take a lot of time and that it's going to be boring, which it may or may not be. But I've had a really exciting, personally you guys, I find it really exciting to know if I'm meeting my sales targets or to know, I know if I'm meeting my goals and what I'm bringing in every month and how I'm going to invest in my business, I get really excited about it because for me it's the future of my business.

Speaker 4: 21:48

Yes. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Um, I will say, you know, that time investment, I think the time investment needs to happen up front. Um, so you do need to figure out like what's the system that you're gonna use for your bookkeeping system, right? And so in your initial years you can use a spreadsheet, you know have, have one sheet that has a list of all your sales, have one sheet that has a list of all your expenses. And honestly you can download that from the online banking system. We don't even need to type things in anymore. So that's the most basic system that you'll have in your first probably two years of business. After that you want to get into some accounting software. I always recommend QuickBooks just because it can grow with your business. There are other options and things like that, but you want to get into some real accounting software at that point. So anytime you're learning something new, like when you do get into QuickBooks, there is a learning curve. And so there is that investment of setting something up. Like when you set up, you know, HoneyBook or aisle planner or timeline genius, like all of these different tools that we use in our business, you know that it's going to require you two to five days to figure it out and set it up in the best way, learn it and get all the training that you need. So yes, there isn't an initial time investment, but after that, once you get it going, as long as you set it up, well you shouldn't really be spending more than a few hours a month. I always say, you know, bookmark the first Monday or Tuesday of every single month, make it your accounting day, but then it becomes your bigger strategy day. Um, the bookkeeping side is, I'm going to be honest, like the bookkeeping side of the business is boring. Like that's data entry. You're putting things into a spreadsheet or QuickBooks, like it's just data entry and that's not the exciting part. The exciting part is what you've described. When you do look at your skill sales goals and you see, Oh my gosh, I hit my target, or I miss my target. Like, what do I need to change forward or I stayed within my expense budget or I didn't like how can I make better decisions? Right? Like the exciting part is once you get into what I call that, you know, those CFO, the actual like strategic part of it, when you start to see the trends in your business, earning money and losing money, hitting your goal, senior cash go up and down, um, that CFO part is the exciting part of the business. The bookkeeping, it has to happen. Somebody has to do it. That's a little more monotonous though. Like I don't even enjoy the bookkeeping side of it, but it's the information that I get from that. That's so, so fascinating. And to see like, you know, that goal go down as the year, you know, as the year continues, it's incredibly gratifying.

Speaker 3: 24:30

Yes, definitely. And I want to emphasize a word that you used. It is the word of the month for me here, which is systems. So I think yes, it's so critical and you guys once, you know, once I was able to sort of, um, make the finances and my business a habit, I turned it into, you know, it was blocked into my, I do it twice a month. So I do it on the 15th and 30th of every month is when I, um, go into the finance side of my business and take a look at why I have two businesses, which is partially why I do it twice, twice a month. Um, but I have just set that side of that time aside and no matter what, it's non-negotiable because I know how incredibly important it is and I just have a checklist of things I have to do on those days. You know, things I need to double check, making sure that I have all my receipts printed and they're all ready to go or scanned in. Um, you know, some basic steps that I just go through and I don't even have to think about it because that's the beauty of having a system. It's, you know, done for me. And some of it is automated, but I can definitely just go through the list and be like, okay, that's done. And then like you said, I get to the fun part and the biggest change I experienced in my business when I started focusing on this and making it, you know, a monthly habit was the empowerment of being able to make smart decisions for my business as opposed to feeling like I was reacting to the money in my business. Suddenly I was in control and I could actually make decisions that felt good to me and that were based on numbers and based on reality and not based on sort of a, a wish. You know what I mean?

Speaker 4: 26:08

Yes, yes. Oh my gosh. The, the control that you feel, um, when you do this is that it's a game changer. Um, and I'd also say there's, um, there's a confidence that comes with it too. I just, I see people sell better, sell smarter. Um, people stop shying away from their pricing or that pricing conversation because you, if you know how money flows through your business and you start to understand what it really takes to be profitable in this business, all of a sudden you're going to get a lot more, uh, sure about what you need to charge. And then when that client or that candidate, that potential client says, well, that's a little bit more than we wanted to spend. Why is it so expensive? Well, you know, you can come back, you can say like, well, let me, you know, I, I realize that, you know, this is quite an investment. Let me tell you why. Right? Like, you can justify it so much better when you know it's backing up that price that you've put forward for somebody.

Speaker 3: 27:10

[inaudible] absolutely. And I also find that it makes me more of a stickler for my pricing when I know what I'm like, what my goals are and I know, and also what I, when I know what my expenses are, when I know that I actually need to earn X amount of dollars that month in order to cover my overhead or my expenses or, you know, the conference I want to attend or whatever, then it gives me that, um, that energy and that motivation to, to do whatever I have to do to make sure that I'm meeting those goals.

Speaker 4: 27:42

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You're, you're less willing to back down on that price when you realize if I do this for last or take things off, then it starts to impact my business negatively. Um, yeah.

Speaker 3: 27:57

So what are some simple strategies that wedding pros can implement in their business to become more knowledgeable and in control? I mean, we talked a little bit about the team that they need to have, but what else can they start doing?

Speaker 4: 28:09

Yeah, well, I think it depends on the level, like where somebody is at in business. So if you're in your, well, and I shouldn't even say it in business, I should actually say where you're at in terms of your accounting or finance education. Cause like, like I said earlier, I've seen you know, businesses that are 10 years in business and they're still at that accounting one Oh one level. Um, and that's fine, right? So it depends on how comfortable you are with your finances. Um, if you are not comfortable, if you feel like you have been in the dark about a lot of things and, or you're just starting out, then you do need to get that accounting, one-on-one education. And you know, can I give a little plug? I sure can. We have accounting one-on-one and let me tell you guys, it's not going to be like talking to your tax accountant like this is, this is what I do and I've been in this industry 15 years, so I know how to talk like a normal person in, in that course. So if you are just starting out, go check out accounting one Oh one. If you're already looking into software, go check out the QuickBooks one Oh one. So those are the two accounting courses that I offer. I'd say that that's where you want to look at in your, in that starting point. If you're already have a system, like let's say you're already using the software, you have an amazing spreadsheet. The next place that you want to go to is really trying to understand the analytical side. And that word analytical can kind of put people to sleep sometimes. But this is what Mary and I were talking about. Like this is the exciting stuff. Like go through on your accounting day, whether it happens once a month or twice a, see how you've done, read your profit and loss report, look at your sales versus your expenses and learn what the information is telling you. Um, the first time you look at that stuff, it's going to, you're not going to know what you're looking at, right? But everything in life requires practice. You know, the first time you joined a team when you were a teenager required you to practice every single day. Um, it's, it's the same thing here and the expectation is not for you to pick up another career as an accountant, but it's for you to get comfortable with that role of CFO. So I'd say that that's like the second step if you already understand your accounting is get comfortable with that CFO step, understanding what's happening in your business. And then the third step is to take it a step further to create that, those sales goals, that expense budget, that cashflow plan. Um, I have a lot of resources on our site. It's also something people can hire me to do as well. Um, but you really want to be able to put your place where you are, put yourself or your business in a place where you're guiding the direction of it, right? So you've gone from level one where you're just kind of trying to learn. This is your newbie, your accounting one Oh one. Again, regardless of what level you are as a business owner, your financial knowledge may be, you know, starting out. Number two, start understanding what it means to be a CFO. A number three, you want to be thinking about how to direct your business, where you want it to go, right? And so the numbers of the backbone of those decisions that you make with your marketing, with your operations, that's the ability that you'll be able to get to if you start setting those sales goals. Expense, budget, cashflow plan.

Speaker 3: 31:21

One of the questions I get asked a lot, um, are from wedding pros who are looking at scaling their business. So whether they're looking at hiring and most common, the question I get is we want to hire additional team members. How do they know when that's right for them? Like it's probably the number one question. Like how do I know when it's the right financial move to start growing my business?

Speaker 4: 31:46

Yeah. Um, well I would say that there's, I think there's two stages of this. Um, I think that the first step that you will find yourself in is likely somewhere between two to five years in business where you're, you're really trying to hedge your, hold your head above water, um, and you're just working so many hours that you need help, you need assistance. Um, that those first decisions in hiring are typically what I think of as the super part-time hires. Um, you may be hiring someone to come in and help you five to 10 hours a week, or maybe it's just weekend assistance on events. You may be hiring a virtual assistant. Um, those decisions in hiring are typically not scaling decisions like their survival decisions, right? And, um, those survival decisions aren't going to help you grow the business exponentially. They're just going to help you kind of make it through that initial, um, stage where you're just, you're working too hard. Um, I think that stage is really important because that's where you learn to actually manage people, hire them, train them. A lot of people that have, that are business owners in this industry have never had that management experience. So give yourself that time, that initial, um, hiring burst to learn what that looks like. And you don't have to overextend yourself. Um, you know, at least in the United States, we don't have requirements to hire people full time. You can hire somebody five hours a week. Is it like that in Canada too? It's virtually identical. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, and so here people do that a lot as contractors. Um, that's not always the correct treatment and that's a whole other talk. Um, oftentimes that person really should be an employee even if they're just five hours a week. So again, we could talk about that for an entire day, but, um, so that's what I see is like that initial commitment or that initial hiring that you're going to do after a few years. And I, I tend to see this at the five plus year Mark, is where you start to get into some of those scaling decisions that you brought up. Um, and what that means is you see the potential for your business to grow exponentially if you just had more people, um, producing events essentially. Right? So maybe you've learned that your personal cap on events is like 15 full scale events per year as a one person show with maybe a couple assistants and that's that. At that point you, you may have the market demand to be doing 25 events, 30 events a year. This is where you come to that scaling question where you think if I could replace myself, if I could hire another me, how could I grow this business? And so that's the true scaling question. And what you want to be thinking about, and this is where you're tying in a financial decision with an operational decision, is if I hire this person and let's say I'm going to pay them$40,000 a year,$50,000 a year, it depends on what you're looking for. Will that person allow me to grow the business$100,000 right? Because in the short term you may just be breaking even on that employee investment, but over time you want to make sure that your business, if it's scaling properly in investment that you make at that scale is going to help you grow your business exponentially. So, you know, hiring somebody at 50,000 allows you to do$100,000 more in sales. Right? That's true scalability. Um, and I don't think a lot of people, um, are able to do that. If you don't have a financial strategy, it's very hard to make that decision, right? You may, you're making that decision from an operational lens and not a financial lens and the two T to integrate, right? So I always say fine financial strategies is the backbone of every other decision that you make. It's basically the skeleton. It holds up every other decision that you make in your business. So a marketing decision has, um, typically, you know, a budget line item for marketing expense, but it should also have a sales goal attached to it as well. Same thing with operational decisions. So if you hire somebody, you have an expense line item, but you also have hopefully over time you start to see the sales increase exponentially. Um, and it may take, it may take a few years to actually show that investment pay off, but that should be the goal if you're really trying to scale your business. Cause it's like why bother? Right? Like why bother bringing in somebody, hiring them, training, managing them if you're not, if you're just going to continue making the same amount of money every year. Right? Like it's a lot of work to have staff.

Speaker 3: 36:32

Mm. And I think that that is something that people often overlook those two things. So the most common thing I say you've really hit the nail on the head here is that people hire someone and then they're only focused on making that investment back. That's, that's, that's all they're focused on is as long as I can afford to pay the salary of this person, then I made a good decision. And then they don't understand why the business isn't growing and all of a sudden, you know, they have more work on their hands because managing people takes a lot. It takes a lot of energy. I, you know, I have a team, I understand how that works and, um, it does take a time investment on your behalf, on, I mean, even once the training is done, it's a lot of managing and all of a sudden you have payroll to worry about and, and you know, you have to make sure that your keeping your employees safe and that they're, you know, all of those things. So, and I know you've had in the past a whole HR series, I don't know, was it a course or was it just a,

Speaker 4: 37:33

yeah, well, we have the people plan, which is our tool for hiring and training. And I, I think that if you've never hired or trained anybody, that's the place to start because it basically shows you every little thing that you need to do from, you know, putting together the ad, interviewing, what should you interview for all the paperwork. Um, and then things like having an employee handbook and review annual reviews and what to do if you need to fire somebody and those sorts of things. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 38:01

Yeah. That's awesome. What a great resource that is. Cause I know that it's overwhelming and like you said, a lot of us in this industry don't have that background. Right? Yeah,

Speaker 4: 38:12

yes.

Speaker 3: 38:13

Yeah. But yeah, I love that. I love that idea that if you're going to start growing your team, make sure it's with a goal in mind and the goal should be to grow your business, not just to take on more work with more people. Right?

Speaker 4: 38:27

Yeah. Yes, yes. I, I don't know how often I see people that, um, you know, we like that may be a goal that somebody comes to me with is I want to see if I can hire this person and, um, I want to offer them a full time position. And we, we run through their numbers and it's like, well, you, you're already, you're, let's say they're earning their take home was$70,000 or something and then they bring on that person and sometimes that earnings, that earning goes down or just stays flat. Now again, like I said, it may, you know, in the first year or two, it may just break even. But you do want to see it scale after a while. You have to, um, hire, hiring people to me is the hardest part of being a business owner. Um, well, not hiring them, but managing them. Really. It's harder than numbers. It's hard. It's harder than everything. You can't, you can't manipulate, you know, you can't, you can't mold people in the way that you can, you know, money and finances and that sort of information. Even marketing and sales decisions where you can learn how to sell more effectively and learn the right things to say and things like that. But, but people, you're working with emotions and, and dynamics and so, yeah, it's hard. So unless you're making extra money, um, that's something you want to probably rethink a little bit.

Speaker 3: 39:51

[inaudible] and I think the other thing that I noticed too with any of these financial decisions is I think, and this goes, I think to, in a way the creativity in our business. We get a creative idea about our business and then we just want to do it right. We are implemented in this industry and sometimes I have to say to my clients, okay, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Let's step back a little bit here. Let's, let's pause and let's make a plan for this. And I think that with all big financial decisions, it's important to take the time to make a plan for it. And I think what you're talking about in terms of having that financial strategy, that's where that piece comes in. So if you're, when people come to me and they're like, okay, I want to add two new team members this year, then I'm always like, okay, well let's, let's look at what that actually is going to mean financially and otherwise. And can you afford it? And do you have, you know, the, do you have some money in your business in case something happens? Like do you have that, that savings? Yeah, exactly. The reserves. So, um, I think it's just so important to have a plan. And I know how much I personally love to rush into decisions.

Speaker 4: 40:59

It's human nature for anybody, actually. Decisions are made from emotions. Um, it's very rare that decisions are made rationally. And the reason why is because it does take you time to stop and pause and think through things. And especially with, uh, with a financial system. If you're not, if you don't have a financial system in place, you don't have a structure to kind of fall back on to help you make decisions. Um, so what's gonna happen if we don't have that system in place, we're going to make that decision. We're going to go to what's the fastest, right? The fastest is to say like, how do, how do I feel like, what's my gut feeling? Now? There's nothing. I'm a, I'm a fan of gut feelings too. Right? But, but, um, big decisions, you really do need to kind of take that pause, go back to your plan, think about, you know, what it's gonna look like over the longterm.

Speaker 3: 41:52

Mm, definitely. So when we talk about planning strategic money decisions, what are some other money decisions that people will probably need to make in their business aside from adding to a team, for example?

Speaker 4: 42:06

Yeah. Well, I honestly think it's the, it's the risk of losing tons of money is what scares people, right? So it's not when you go to office Depot and you buy a cartridge of ink, like that's not the make or break decision. Um, but when you hire people, there's, it's a, it's a large investment. Um, but it's also you're investing in somebody else's personal finances, which is scary. So any decisions on that nature are the ones that make us kind of, you know, swallow, but like think twice, right? Or feel a little bit more vulnerable to that risk. Um, I think moving into an office space, depending on people's, um, situation or circumstances, that can be a large investment that people want to think about twice. Um, a lot lately. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, that's a toughie because I feel like sometimes people make that decision in an effort to keep up with the Joneses. They see peers that are moving into office spaces and they feel like they need to do that too to be considered legitimate. Um, and in some, in some cases is like some in some situations people really do need to um, have that storefront, um, to legitimize what it is that they do. But, but more often than not, it's not really, I mean that's the decision made almost as like a vanity piece. Um, and um, the two largest expense, uh, expenses that any, any business will have, whether it's a wedding business or a fortune 500 business, I'm going to tell you is people and facilities, right? So it always comes down to rent and payroll expense or labor expense. Those are the two biggest things that most established businesses are spending money on. If, if you don't, if you're like still in the earlier years or you're not planning to scale your business that way, you don't want to have people, you're not going to have those sorts of things and that's fine. You don't need to. But once you get into those two areas, that's where you going gonna spend the most of your money. So you don't want to take those decisions lightly because they can end up taking, you know, 50, 60, 70% of your expense budget. Um, those are, those are huge, huge decisions that you need to come back to and you need to take a step back and say, okay, why, why am I making this decision? Why, why do I want to move into the space? How is it going to pay off for me? Um, are there any other options? Is this the only, um, you know, if it's going to have a marketing impact on me, if it's going to give me a little bit more notoriety or panache, how is that going to translate into sales? Um, when I had my stationary business, I went into, uh, a studio that was amazing and it was beautiful. But that decision was definitely made in vanity and ego. I felt like I had to have that space to legitimize myself and I didn't, I don't think my clients cared to be quite honest. Um, now I couldn't have kept my business and in my house because I had way too much inventory and an infant on the way. So she was taking up my office. But, um, so there were, you know, operational things that I, uh, reasons that I had to move into that office space, but I had convinced myself that I needed it to legitimize myself, that it was a smart marketing decision and that wasn't true. Right. So we can talk ourselves into those things.

Speaker 3: 45:28

[inaudible] been there, done that. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 45:31

Well, people will walk into my office and they're just gonna want to fuck me right then and there. What ended up happening was a lot of people were intimidated. It was like the opposite. They were like, Oh man, this is a gorgeous space. This is why she's so expensive. I'm at a year, right. It wasn't my target market, right. Like that would have worked for another target market where somebody would be like, Oh yeah, now I get why she's expensive. Right. But it wasn't the target market in Seattle. People don't want to see that. They don't want to see fancy and um, ostentatious, like people, even if they have money, they're a little bit more low key and how they show it.

Speaker 3: 46:06

[inaudible]. Yeah. And I think, you know, I went through that stage a little bit to where I, I felt I needed an offsite location and there, there were practical reasons to, you know, I was sick to death of doing consultations and coffee shops and, and all of that stuff. And it, you know, it, it worked for a while and it, it certainly felt good. I was so excited every day to go to work, you know, totally. And just loved having my own space. But the reality of it, like you said, like one of the numbers really started rolling in. I was like, this is not, this is not moving the dial on my business anymore. And it's really just costing me money. And luckily these days, like there's so many great alternatives. We have so many coworking spaces here. My boss, it's amazing. Okay. Existed way back in the day. I know, I know. So you, I know that over the years you have seen and experienced so much and you've worked with hundreds of wedding pros over the years. So based on all of that, what would be one piece of advice that you'd like to share with our listeners today? What would be the one nugget that you want to leave them with?

Speaker 4: 47:18

So the ability to earn in this industry and um, be profitable, but also to earn what you want really comes down to the pricing of your services. That the factor day in, day out, it's not how much you're spending. It's not, you know, your expense budget, it's, it all comes down to your pricing. Um, and um, it's, you know, it comes down to, you know,

Speaker 5: 47:47

[inaudible]

Speaker 4: 47:47

if you, if your pricing is low, you just have to do a hell of a lot more and eventually you're going to burn out being on that treadmill. Um, so you really do need to think about the pricing and, um, ensuring that you're getting enough bang for your buck for that event. Um, a lot of times that doesn't necessarily mean having these huge price increases, which I know sometimes people are scared of. It just means being way more strategic about how you're selling. Um, so if you sell something for like$5,000, is there an opportunity to come back later on and make sure that your client is being serviced and ask them, Hey, you know, you mentioned that, um, you might be needing this or that your sister was going to do this for you. Is that still the case? If so, let me know. Or if you're need, let me know. I can give you a quote, right? It's about selling smart and really listening and being a service provider. If you're a true service provider and you're constantly listening to client's needs, you're going to find better opportunities to sell. Um, and to, you know, for lack of a better word, get more bang for your buck. But it's not even about, you know, squeezing your client. It's just about being smart, about giving the client what it is that they probably already need. Right? So it all comes down that pricing profitability or the profitability earnings all comes down to how you're priced. Um, pricing is a marketing decision. So you really have to go back and take a look at who is it that you're selling to. Uh, what, what is it that you're selling? How do you differentiate yourself? What is it that makes you stand out? What opportunities are there for you to stand out? Um, and then, you know, whatever price is a fit for that market, going back and testing it financially. So you want to be going through the numbers and say, okay, I think this is a good match for my market. Does it allow me to reach my financial goals? Um, and if not, then you gotta go back, right? You got to rethink something within your marketing strategy to find a better fit and may mean that you need to sell to a different, you know, corner of the market so that you can be profitable in the business.

Speaker 3: 49:53

Mm. I love that. And pricing is one of my all time favorite topics cause it's, you know, it's such a pain point in the industry and there's so much struggle in the industry as an unregulated industry with the, you know, low barrier to entry. I think it's, it's a conversation that, that we have almost daily in the wide printer community really comes down to that pricing piece. And hopefully people, when you look at the big picture, as everybody listens to this episode and you think about all of your goals and your hopes and your dreams for your business, understand that so much of that is going to hinge upon this pricing piece. Right? So it's so critical.

Speaker 4: 50:34

Cool. Yeah. When you know what that challenge with pricing never goes away. That's the thing is that, you know, you can be in business 10 1520 years and you're still, because your business is changing and you're trying to always figure out what's the best pricing structure or for your, for your market, for your business. Right. So it's one of those things that I know a lot of people early in business worry about, but it doesn't really ever go.

Speaker 3: 51:00

No. I did a great interview, um, a while back and I think it was with Andy Christa and he was talking about the fact that, you know, even the most high end celebrity wedding professionals still have this battle. They still worry about their pricing. They still think about it. They still make changes to it. Like it's ongoing. You have to be able, you know, to be nimble in the market, the market changes, your business changes, your clients change. So it definitely doesn't go away. But I think when you get comfortable and understand what goes into your pricing, then it becomes a little easier as you go along in your business.

Speaker 4: 51:35

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 51:37

Absolutely. Well, Michelle, I would like to give you a moment to talk about something that's really exciting. I, you know, I'm a big fan of yours, so I'm always watching what's going on with, with Sage and everything else. Can you talk a little bit about the BCH Sage conferences that you have going on?

Speaker 4: 51:51

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I would love that. Um, so this year we're going to have be Sage conference in Austin February 3rd through this sixth. It is three days of, uh, inspired, uh, learning for master level professionals. So typically people who attend are in business at least five years. Um, you know, I'd say the average is about 10 years and it's the goal of B stage is to introduce topics for people who already have success as a business owner and they're trying to build on that success and figure out what's next for me, what's next for my business, what's next for my career. And so a few of the topics that we have this year are, um, how to build an exit strategy. I would hope that most people in this business are thinking about, I dunno what's next, right? Like I, you know, the idea of I don't want to be a wedding planner until I'm 70. Right. What does that look like for your business? What makes sense? Um, we are talking about how to proactively prevent burnout. Um, so how do we ensure that we've set up systems within our business? And our personal life so that we don't find ourselves in the thick of busy season overwhelmed. Um, we're talking about how to transition, um, your role as the worker bee in your business to the leader of your company. So this is a strategy showing, you know, your, you have been the, that producer on events for the last several years and now you have a team. How do you get yourself out of those weeds so that you're much more of the visionary of your company, the creative director. How do you put yourself in that role? So those are a few of the topics, uh, that we have, um, really excited. Um, I love this conference because, uh, you know, I started it really as a desire for myself to learn. Um, I started seeing that a lot of the education in the industry wasn't, um, after being in this industry for 15 years wasn't really, uh, approaching some of my pain points as a business owner. And I started seeing that with my clients. You know, after working with people for 10 years, their pain points are, or their struggles, their challenges as business owners are really different from where they may have been, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago. And so these are the sorts of issues that I started seeing come up is how do I manage people more effectively? You know, how do I compete in a saturated market? How do I shift my business model into doing really high end events for very few people? Right. Um, and so that's what B Sage was started on, was on the tails of some of those challenges that people experienced at the next level of business.

Speaker 3: 54:43

I love how so much of the, you know, brilliance in our industry comes from people who create what they need in their own business. So I love that you've gone ahead and done this. It's amazing. I'm definitely going to link to all of this information plus the other programs that you mentioned in the show notes. So, um, I will definitely link to everything there so that people can check that stuff out. I highly recommend it. I've known Michelle A. Long time and like I said, I'm a bit of a fan girl of hers, so,

Speaker 4: 55:14

Oh wow.

Speaker 3: 55:16

And in, I will say this in a time where we are inundated with experts and mentors and you know, coaches and consultants. Michelle is the real deal. Like she really has the background and she has the clients, you know, she has the experience working with so many wedding pros who will all, I'm sure shout the same from the rooftops. So you know it, I think it's so hard these days sometimes to be able to tell who the, who the experts are, who the, who's going to get you results, who's a good fit. It's really hard to tell all of that these days. So hopefully, you know, I encourage everybody to check out Michelle checkout everything that she does because she is, you know, she's the real deal I'm telling you.

Speaker 4: 56:02

Thank you Mary. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is so fun. It has been really fun.

Speaker 3: 56:07

Fun. I've really enjoyed this. And if our listeners want to find you online, where can they find you?

Speaker 4: 56:14

I am at Sage, S H E E as in wisdom wedding pros, P R O S. dot. Fantastic.

Speaker 3: 56:24

All of my handles are that as well. Sage wedding pros are all my social media handles. Great and I will link to those as well in the show notes. Michelle, thank you so much for being here today. This has been a real pleasure. Thanks Mary. I really love chatting with you. Have a great day. Hey everyone, it's me again. I just want to say I strongly encourage you to attend the BSH conference with Michelle. You can check out her website for upcoming sessions@bsageweddingpros.com and I will link to that in the show notes as well. I'm really hoping that you're starting to get excited about becoming the CFO in your wedding business. It is so important and so empowering. I know I keep saying that, but I really want you all to get the experience to experience the feeling of control and excitement that comes with embracing that role. It's also critical to the success of your wedding business. You can coast along for a few years without paying too much attention to money. Trust me, I did it, but I promise you there will come a day when you realize that it should be the number one priority for you as a business owner. Thank you once again for spending time with me. I love to get to know each of you better, so please don't hesitate to add me on Instagram at the web printer community. I will follow you back and send me a DM to let me know that you're a listener. I love hearing from the listeners of this podcast. I'll write my friends see you next week.

Speaker 1: 57:49

Thank you so much for joining me for this week's episode of the wet preneur podcast. I'm so incredibly grateful to all of my listeners and would like to take a moment to invite you to keep the conversation going. Head on over to my free online community@thewetpreneur.com forward slash join if you enjoyed this episode, help us spread the word by leaving us an honest review on iTunes. I appreciate each and every one of you and welcome your feedback. Until next time.[inaudible].