I’m not one to jump on a bandwagon of the latest and greatest skincare line or the trendy self-help lady train that promises the moon, in fact I almost have prided myself on my stubborn ways when it comes to trying much of anything. Sometimes though when you are chatting with a friend over coffee and the conversation turns to how you are feeling more tired these days, or that sleep isn’t great when your mind is always running. You hear yourself saying these lines yet you know that if the table was turned you would tell your girlfriend that she needs to take better care of herself; you know “work life balance!”

Photo by Tim Goedhart on Unsplash

What happens though when you simply aren’t taking the advise that you know you would readily dish out? Well it may be time to set some intention in your daily regimen, taking small steps towards habits that can re-align yourself with better rest, better clarity and balance by diving deeper into some of the causes and effects of what holds you back.

Growing our businesses may be our passion, but we still need to take care of ourselves in order to show up in our business and clients with the best version of ourselves. I am excited that my dear friend invited me to join a free 7 day virtual retreat through Nina Camille and you can check it out for yourself if you are interested in participating: https://www.experiencefreedom.co/virtual-retreat

Aside from the virtual retreat I am going to focus more on what we as a family put in our bodies because when you are a mompreneur and your kids have the longest cold ever - you start to think maybe we could be doing more to build up better immunity and eliminate some of the foods that could be adding inflammation or allergies. My hope is also for some quality time with my young daughters in the kitchen will be good for the soul too!

So cheers to relaxing on Thanksgiving but also to taking some time to reflect & look inwards a bit in order to set some intentions for ourselves in the coming year!

In this day and age, we don’t have to start from scratch when it comes to running our business. We’ve got tech and tools to do just about everything in our day-to-day lives so why not take advantage of these time-saving platforms to streamline your business operations as well. Everything from your inquiry workflows, email campaigns, brochures, timelines, questionnaires and much more - but the question is what Customer Relations Management (CRM) Platform is best for you?

Honeybook

This powerful platform has completely changed the way that we work through inquiries, send contracts, communicate with our clients and collaborate with other creatives. I love how streamlined the whole system is and that it is very mobile friendly. Recently, I was able to send a proposal and have a signed contract with payment back from the client within about 6 minutes all while I was in the airport security line. Mindblowing! You can sign up for a free 7 day trial and 50% discount with our referral link here.

Aisle Planner

Once our planning company consistently managed more than 15 projects simultaneously, we knew it was time to find a better way to organize our projects. In comes Aisle Planner to the wedding industry scene to completely revolutionize the tools available to planners. We’re talking master timelines, budget tracking, RSVP Management, Design & Layout Tools,.. yep pretty much the dream stuff right here. You can sign up for a free trial to give it a spin by using our referral code ozhf for a free 30 day trial and 25% off for your first three months.

Dubsado

Dubsado is a multi-faceted hub that allows you to create a very fluid workspace for not only your business but for your clients when they access shared information. What we also love about Dubsado most is their amazing customer service and support team who are always adding new features, the ability to manage multiple brands and users under one roof. Dubsado can be customized with your unique branding for a cohesive user experience. You can sign up for a free trial allowing you to have up to 3 clients/projects before needing to upgrade to the paid plans. you can lock in a lower rate before December 3rd by using our referral link.

Pops of Confetti

Who else is a fan of confetti? (raise hand emoji). Then you’re going to love my friend, Serena’s new offer through @popsofprettystock. The CONFETTI CLUB! This membership experience exists to make social media fun again! 

• Imagine always knowing what to post across your platforms

• Imagine knowing how to “hack” the algorithm and actually reach your target market

• Imagine not spending hours paralyzed with worry that you’ll post the wrong thing

• Imagine not being confused by stories, highlights, saves, collections and impressions

• Imagine showing up on the first page of Google 

• Imagine actually booking business from your social media

Shed the stress, spend more time celebrating your business and join a community of wedding pros and creatives that believe social media can be fun again.  

The Confetti Club membership experience includes: 

• Monthly social media training and tips from a wedding industry veteran of 15 years. 

• Weekly office hours via Private Facebook Group  + Voxer) with social media expert, Serena Waller of Delegate & Elevate - a social media strategist + manager that works exclusively with wedding pros over the last four years. 

• Expert advice from seasoned pros on the topics of branding, work-flow, systems, and more for your growing business

• Exclusive stock-photo galleries to use in your online & offline marketing

• A community of like-minded entrepreneurs 

• More surprises along the way!

From curating powerful hashtag lists and how to get strategic with your content to understanding your social analytics and optimizing your social platforms, you’ll finally have your go-to resource to help you make sense of it all in the rapidly changing social media space! You can join the Confetti Club with our referral link here!

Leading a team doesn’t come natural to me, I am aware of my own tendencies to operate as more of a lone-wolf than a leader of an all women team of planners. For years I maxed myself out trying to do it all, and the stress of being a one woman show can really start to pile up on your shoulders.

Instead, I branched out to having an intern or independent contractors who would assist with weddings but still weren’t taking on much of the bulk of client work. So I found myself still planning all of the weddings, spinning my wheels trying to teach brand new staff and not fully trusting anyone to take on tasks. Fast forward to 2016 when I knew that my third trimester of my second trimester was going to fall right in the middle of our busiest season. I was lucky to find an eager assistant who had majored in Event Management and had a passion for events. After assisting and leading month-of weddings we established a great working relationships and her role grew into being essentially my other half when it came to marketing, bridal shows, booking clients and managing weddings.

Despite several industry warnings and hesitations in the business world we charted into partnership territory and for much of the time we were able to work seamlessly - dividing and conquering the tasks that we both felt were our strengths and communicating on those tasks that we needed help with. I was able to pass off much of the staff interactions because I viewed it as more her strength than mine. Of the many lessons that I learned over the year of partnership, you can share tasks with another member of your team but keep a system in place to stay on top of tasks and deadlines.

If you are reading this and can relate with having a few areas in your business that you wish you could just hand-off then this advice is for you. Definitely seek assistance from others and heck, even outsource parts of your business that are time consuming or draining - but ONLY if you have a system in place to have your finger on the pulse of that task. If you outsource social media - then have benchmarks and expectations in place of what your expectations are with that task. If you have an associate team and they are managing client work, have either a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly team meeting that you can stay up-to date on the progress of each of those events.

So how do we run a team? First, my staff are employees rather than independent contractors which means they have a handbook, training opportunities and policies to follow. Second, they have access to Aisle Planner and can see the back end communication of the weddings so they can stay updated with the events. Third we incorporated Trello for team communication, scheduling, tracking staff hours and sharing other details so that each staff member can have their own board to share with management as well as a team board. Our goal is to create a culture in our company where each planner has confidence and support from their team. This will continuously be improved as I learn and receive feedback from the team of how we can do better.

We have to keep working on those areas we see as our weakness and continually ask for feedback. Ask your team questions about their goals, what they enjoy most about the events they have worked on, what do they want to learn more of, and how their experience could be better as a member of the team. You will be surprised how much your team cares about the growth of the company! Next, visualize how you want your team to interact with clients and how this impacts the scalability of your company in years to come.

Happy planning!
Veronica

It’s been a minute ya’ll. Wedding season came swiftly and with a brand new team all of those time management and organization hacks that I’ve preached .. well those fell to the back burner. Instead I’ve been playing the wack-a-mole game with the more urgent tasks and treaded water with everything else. Can I get an amen? Add two kids & preschool/TK drop-offs & pick-ups to the mix and that polished approach is no more. So what can we do when we feel like we are constantly behind and burning the candle into the midnight hour? Re-set and give yourself some grace.

Why do we walk on egg shells for everyone else’s schedules but sabotage ourselves into exhaustion to please clients. If I remember back to the foundation of why I pushed so hard to create a business it was driven by the need for creativity and freedom in my daily schedule and it was because I didn’t want to be an absent parent in my children’s day-to-day activities.

So by re-set- I mean evaluate objectively on what is taking up the most of your time. Outsourcing or bringing on an assistant may seem impossible but if you were to able to free up some of the time you spend on emails, assembling day-of binders or files on your tablet etc. it could completely change the game.

What about administrative hours? Are you wearing all the hats and spinning your wheels when it comes to focusing on completing tasks.. consider block scheduling your week (one week at a time) and designate one hour for emails, one hour for follow-up tasks, on hour for you-time bonus points if that involves a walk or workout and blocks of time dedicated to social media, marketing tasks, blogging etc.

The next pain point that I know I have talked about is working with your ideal client - one who values your work. Well when the inquiries come rolling in are you sending proposals before reading into whether this client or project is a good fit for your company? I am just as guilty of filling up dates before stopping to evaluate the client’s expectations and budget so when it comes to executing their day we can see elements that are not aligning with our companies values.

Each and every lesson learned will help you in the future but only if you have the mindset of implementing change to ensure that you can grow from the experience. If any of this resonates with your experience we hope you’ll join us in our upcoming mastermind call in our free Wedding Planner Mastermind Group on Facebook. We’re going to dive into lessons learned, opportunities for growth and what steps we can take to align with our ideal clients.

Until then, Happy Planning!
Veronica

“It takes more than passion to be successful in any industry, but especially in the creative world of wedding planning.”

A writer can get writers block, an artist can lose their muse or become un-inspired to create. Our will to show up and to meet & exceed the expectations of our clients no matter how full or empty our cup is in our personal lives. The dedication that it takes to succeed in an industry where you can’t simply call in sick or lose focus, that is what set’s the successful business owners apart from others.

Photo by Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash

With so many planners starting their business on the side of another full time job or perhaps after a major career change, the idea of being a planner can feel like this unicorn dream that you are chasing and someday you will get to be a full time, real-deal planner living the dream! I do believe this isn’t a dream, it is a reality for those who want to put the work in! We could talk all day about planners who are making over six figures and have grown a large team of associate planners, branched into florals & luxury design.. in other words killing it!

However that isn’t the focus of the post, because instead I wanted to talk about the un-sexy times of feeling the burn out and the self-doubt. Then how to get past those emotions and set yourself up for a path where you can have a long & successful career in the industry as a business owner.

• Set clear goals in attainable steps

• Focus on education & systems to improve efficiency

• Limit distractions - You have plenty of time for social media after you get those emails out!

• Don’t try to be everything to everyone - find your special strength or target in your industry & get to know your ideal clients that you work well with

• Be clear on boundaries with clients to avoid burnout, keep relationships with clients professional

• Under promise & over deliver - this advice will never get old. You can’t succeed if your clients aren’t satisfied with the end result

• Learn to not take things personally! You might have one wedding that feels stressful or that you learned a lesson the hard way but take the lesson and apply it to your next wedding without it messing with your emotions.

Of course self-care & mindset are going to play a huge role in leveling up, if you are constantly having self-limiting thoughts and not taking good care of your mind & body it will take a toll on your work. No one wants to have a wedding planner who comes across as frazzled or stressed. Clients look for confidence, so it is important to start building your inner confidence in order for that to shine in your work.

Find your tribe, good people both in and out of the industry who can help you stay accountable, connected and focused. It can be hard to relate to friends and family who work an 8-5 type job where they aren’t always feeling like they are on-call or needing to challenge themselves to keep reaching for the next level all on their own. We can create a network of people who inspire us and challenge us to keep charging forward.

The biggest take-away is that work is work! It isn’t always going to feel like a dream job, but your clients are relying on you. Set the expectation that as a business owner you will have late nights, a little extra worry here and there but a whole lot of gratitude when you look around at the business you have built from the ground up. The best things take time - you got this!
xoxo- Veronica

No matter how long you have been in business you will experience up’s and down’s; from financial challenges to balancing your work load with your personal life - we have all been there. To be honest it seems to come in waves, one minute you are feeling like you need to book more events and the next you feel like you are going to need help to keep up with your workload. Through these struggles, we make decisions on what we feel is the next step for our business.

Whether it is adding more staff or training current staff to take more of active role with clients and become lead planners, outsourcing social media or other administrative tasks, raising your prices or expanding into new markets - these are all decisions that will bring pro’s and con’s but you have to evaluate the risk and benefit to determine if it is the best path for you.

When I hit 7 years into my planning business, something changed. Maybe it paralled with also having two small children at home but I began to value my time enough to start being much more selective to inquiries (learning to say no!) and to felt confident in the pricing that I was sending out in proposals. What I was looking for in education was something that went beyond how to start a wedding planning business, beyond how to grow my portfolio or how to price my services. I wanted to see into the backend of running a business - advice on the best practices for taxes, training staff and keeping everyone engaged, improving my client experience and really how to scale.

On this search for education, I came across a lot of great industry professionals who are killing it with courses and speaking engagements - each have a specific niche such as pricing for profit, social media, contracts, etc. Maybe I was looking for a unicorn of educational courses! The point is, the mission I set out on was to find these key business practices and apply them to the wedding industry. I am so excited to bring you the newest set of strategy sessions!

Before we get to the new strategy sessions I would love to make sure that you have joined our Free Facebook Group - Wedding Planners Mastermind Group so that you can catch up on our previous strategy sessions available in PDF format and you can watch some of our replays in the group as well. Stay tuned for the first Strategy Session in the Step-up Series next week, released on Monday March 25th.

If you have ever felt like you have been stuck in the scroll, meaning you lose countless hours during the week not sure what to post or how to ever compare to perfect Instagram accounts…keep reading.

First - please know that you are unique and bring value to your clients without having to fit the mold of every other Instagram account you see. Instead, focus on bringing that personality and unique value to your followers authentically & keyword —> Consistently!

So here is where outsourcing comes in! Consistency is key but so is trying to stay on top of everything else on your plate. We recommend outsourcing to business owners who are ready to free up some of their creative energy so they can focus on what they do best - serving their clients well!

Recently I had a chat with Delphine of The 530 & Co, and talked all about outsourcing tasks, you can watch our video below and you can also read Delphine’s full blog post here.

If you missed the 5 Day Visibility Challenge where we talk all about the opportunities to increase your online reach for your business be sure to check out the free course or drop a comment below with any questions that we can help you with!

It was so great to put together the Free 5 Day Visibility Challenge with Valerie Pritt of The Engaged Wedding Planner Academy where we’re talking about the small steps you can take to instantly increase your personal and brand visibility! While we each work with wedding planners in different stages of their business, we feel the elements of this challenge can apply to anyone who would like to ensure they have their bases covered when it comes to your online presence. It’s not too late to participate in each of the lessons, so we’ve created a free course for you to join!

What is this 5 Day Visibility Challenge about?

In the challenge, we have created modules that will cover everything from creating a strong about page, social media profiles, blogging, networking with vendors and more. The focus is to give you simple action items that you can implement right away! In this post I will be covering just one of the many facets of increasing your brand visibility. Digital communication such as email and instant messaging through customer relationship management (CRM) platforms such as Honeybook, Dubsado, Aisle Planner or 17 Hats to name a few; really drive our engagement with clients and colleagues.

In this challenge we created a free course including a PDF workbook and tons of free resources for you to easily increase your online visibility. You will also hear us refer to the Facebook event group that we held the live challenge in. This is available to view here: https://bit.ly/2XALx0n but don’t worry if you missed out on the live group event, because with the free course these modules can be completed any time!

The Challenge Starts January 14th! Along with Valerie Pritt of Engaged Wedding Planner Academy, I have collaborated on this great 5 Day Visibility Challenge to help planners get a handle on social media, blogging, website/about page and more in this new year! We’ll cover tips, resources and action items that you can implement each day of the challenge to keep forward progress on gaining exposure for your business.
Be sure not to miss this free challenge happening on Facebook!

When is the last time you checked your website and blog analytics to see where your traffic is coming from? If it has been awhile, or if you aren’t sure if all of that time you spend on Instagram is really paying off to reach your target clients.. this is for you!

Join the challenge! Sign up to receive the introduction email with information about getting started in the free three week blogging challenge.

Read to get started? Click here to join the free challenge starting November 1st!

Today we are joined by Delphine Winter of The 530 & CO. sharing 4 great tips on outsourcing in order to be more efficient, scroll down to see the full article!

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

4 Reasons WHY Your Business Should Outsource: Social Media 101
by Delphine Winter

As a business owner myself, sometimes I wonder, why would I outsource when that is exactly what I do for a living? Here’s the easy answer, because TIME is MONEY. But here’s the longer answer:

As business owners, we are dedicated to putting our entire life on hold for our company. Which means, sacrificing sleep, family time, even eating! No one ever told us that we would never.stop.working, did they? But that’s the beauty of having our own business; we love what we do so much, that we don’t ever want to stop… until you burn out. Right?

I’m here today on behalf of my Creative Solution company, to tell you that it’s OK to outsource for certain tasks that are so tedious day to day.

1. Do what you know how to do.
As a social media “expert” you don’t see me going to houses fixing electrical circuits, do you? Do you see me building housing developments or fixing a leaky roof every day? I highly doubt it… If you did, it must be my long lost twin! My point is, is that sticking to what you know best is KEY to having and maintaining a successful company. For several reasons really.

For example, if you’re an artist, creating masterpieces, you didn’t go to school to then post it on social media right? No one taught you in Leonardo Devinci 101 how to post a proper social media post to your Instagram or Facebook I’m sure… and that’s OK. Why? Because you have a talent that most people don’t have! Meanwhile, companies like ours are looking to not only HELP you as an individual shine as an artist, but also as a company looking to sell those paintings and grow your online presence. As mentioned previously, time is money!

2. Allowing creativity to flow.
Having someone else involved in the creation of your content, or even just your copy allows your audience to witness different sides of your company. For example, if you are posting everyday on your business's page about how funny and cute animals are… then I come in and post recipes on delicious fall treats for animals, it’s a good mix between the two!

Our biggest motto within our company, is that we will always allow our clients to have full reign, as long as they trust our company to deliver good copy, and good content.

3. Outsourcing allows you to have a LIFE.
When outsourcing, you have time to not only focus on doing what you love, but it also allows you to have a life outside of your business! Not having to worry about when to post, what hashtags to post, what exactly to post, and how many likes you’ll get, sounds amazing huh?

4. Blogging is tedious!
Take it from me, I know how long and tedious writing a blog post is, but that’s why we love doing it for our clients! Did you know we outsource for our blog? That’s because we want to take the time to focus on our client’s blogs to help them grow their SEO (Search engine optimization). Blogging allows others searching the web to find you, so the more you post a blog, the more traffic your website will get!

Choose who you outsource to. Do they charge too much for posting simply on your Instagram for you? Do they have packages that include blogging? Blogging is such an important step when creating your online presence, which can be a whole other blog in itself!

Cheers!

Meet Delphine, as the owner of The 530 & Co. she is helping businesses within the community become noticeably more popular in the area! When she's not working on client's SEO and marketing, she enjoys running and watching movies with her husband and, adorable Chihuahua, Daisy. Photo by Diane Nicole Photography

What can you accomplish this week? Set a small task that will motivate you to keep tackling your to-do list.  Whether your goal for the morning is to write & schedule blog posts for the week, or to finally request images from photographers for the spring weddings you completed.. you can crush it!

If you blogged today, take it one step farther and create a graphic for Pinterest. Pin your blog posts and keep an eye on web traffic.. you might be pleasantly surprised how Pinterest can attract a lot of views to your website.

Before you go to bed, write down one thing you want to accomplish for the next day so that when you wake up you already have an action plan for the day.  These routines can keep you focused and also give you some reassurance on days that you feel a little frazzled from trying to do #allthethings.

Have you joined the free Facebook community just for wedding planners? This is a safe place to ask questions, look for resources and just connect with your peers! Hope to see you there!