Wedding Planner Education | The Awkward Elephant In The Room
Around here we give a slight eye roll when we see the newest guru pop up with another course claiming to give you the ONE secret to making six figures in your business. Even for brand new planners - the more the merrier. Without hesitation I would tell you that any business that is even remotely near six to seven figures is doing more than just ONE top secret thing because success is a balanced ratio of several actions/systems/offerings and strategies to get to that milestone.
Recently, I participated in a survey of wedding planners nationally in a well known group who I respect so much. I too was disheartened to see the lower end of the net profits of what planners are taking home in our industry and I would love to see these numbers go up of course! Are we bringing enough home to cover taxes, overhead, staffing, marketing, insurance and so many other important elements to running a successful business? In 2018, I personally learned a lot about overhead and keeping expenses down. I learned first hand that I spent way too much on rent, staffing and cough cough - Starbucks* :)
Now, we don’t want to price fix or tell people what to charge but what I think we can do is help planners at every level avoid going through pitfalls that kill profitability in a service based business. My frustration in wedding planning education at large is that we only talk to the brand new planners or those who are serving a luxury market and are transitioning into course offerings/retreats or adding additional streams of income (florals. rentals, education etc.)
The Wedding Planner Mastermind Group was created for planners who have been in business a minimum of 5 years and who are planning full time with intentions to grow and scale their companies into more than a side hustle income. Topics like workflows, CRM tools (Aisle Planner, Honeybook, Dubsado etc.) Accounting/Bookkeeping, Staffing, Sales processes and more are super important conversations that we need to keep at the forefront of our industry rather than only focusing on styled shoots & Instagram feeds.
So what would I say to planners who are desperately wanting to take their profitability to the next level? I’d say pull up a chair because it is not a one stop action - its multi-faceted and let’s not try to re-create the wheel when we have so many accomplished industry leaders who can share wisdom in specific areas. Let’s shine a very bright light on that awkward elephant and bring it all into the light. I don’t think we talk enough about the real nitty gritty of business ownership like payroll, self employment taxes, contracts & risk management, labor laws and human resources that can have a ripple effect if you aren’t paying attention to federal and state laws.
If you missed our Finances over Feelings strategy session, drop a comment below with your email address and I’d be happy to send you a copy of the PDF file. Hope we’ll see you over in our Mastermind Group on Facebook.!
- Happy Planning!
Veronica