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4 Data-Backed Steps to Prove Your New Hire is a Profit Engine

If you’re ready to shift your mindset from “Can I afford this?” to “What will this investment create?”, here are the steps we use to confidently scale your team.

1. Choose a Fair, Strategic Salary

The first step is simple, but it needs to be grounded in reality. Before we do anything else, you need to decide what a fair, competitive salary is for the role you need filled. This figure is the foundation of our entire analysis.

We recently had a student who was terrified of hiring a full-time staff member, but she had a goal to pay them $75,000 per year. The panic was real, but the math needed to take over.

“Step one is to choose a fair salary for this role.”

Pro Tip: Don’t guess. Research industry standards for the role (e.g., Lead Planner, Client Manager, Operations Coordinator) to ensure your starting number is attractive and sustainable. Our CEOs inside WPCEO share this type of data all the time.

2. Calculate the Revenue Required to Maintain a Healthy Profit Margin

This is where the magic happens and the fear dissolves. If you want a truly healthy, scalable business, you must operate within clear profit margins. At Wedding Pro CEO, we aim for a 40% profit margin across all executed services. This isn’t just a number we like; it’s a non-negotiable for true wealth creation.

To calculate the minimum revenue your new hire needs to execute to pay for themselves and maintain that 40% margin, we use a simple calculation:

“This means in this case, our new hire needs to execute $187,500 in revenue to pay for themselves and to maintain our healthy profit margins.”

The takeaway? Your $75K hire needs to manage just under $188K in services. Now, let’s break down what that means in actual client work.

3. Determine the Number of Events Required

To take this huge revenue number and make it actionable, you must know your Average Event Ticket (AET). If you don’t know this number for your business, stop reading and go find it! Without your AET, you are guessing—and we don’t guess in the CEO chair.

Our student’s AET was $4,200. We take the required revenue from Step 2 and divide it by the AET:

“So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take that 187,500 and we’re gonna divide it by 4,200… and that tells us that this new hire is gonna need to execute 45 events per year.”

If you were wondering if you could afford a new hire, you now have a target: 45 weddings. That’s a specific, measurable, and achievable goal.

4. Verify Workload Capacity and Confirm Profit

Now, the final layer of data analysis. Is 45 events a year even a realistic workload for one full-time hire? This is where you audit your systems.

Our student calculated that the average wedding takes her team 30 hours of work.

45 Events x 30 Hours Per Event = 1,350 Hours

Compare this to the total working hours in a year (52 weeks X 40 hours = 2,080 hours).

1,350 hours is less than 65% of the total available full-time hours.

This hire is not only sustainable, but they have margin for growth!

And the best part? That $75,000 salary is generating $187,500 in revenue, which means the new hire is producing nearly $100,000 in pure profit for the business!

“So now that we have all of these numbers, we know that that $75,000 salary is gonna produce 187,000 plus in revenue, which means that this $75,000 salary is producing nearly a hundred thousand dollars in profit for our business.”

The shift you need to make right now is this:

Stop asking, “Can I afford this?”

Start asking, “What will this investment create for my business?”

Before We Go

Time to Ditch the Overwhelm

CEO, you have the formula. You know the truth: fear is a lie, and math never does.

You don’t need to keep guessing about growth or burning yourself out by doing it all alone. A strategic hire is your fastest route to capacity, profit, and finally building the business you love.

Our team performs business audits every day for wedding professionals just like you. We’ll show you the exact gaps holding you back from hitting your profit goals and map out a data-backed plan to make 2026 your biggest year.

Ready to stop running a job and start running a profitable business?

Click HERE to book your free Gap Assessment with our team now. Let’s trade your anxiety for a clear, profitable strategy.

FAQ

Q1. Why do you use a 40% profit margin in the calculation?

We use 40% as a healthy, benchmark profit margin within the Wedding Pro CEO framework. This allows room for your cost of goods sold (COGS), overhead, and owner profit. If your current profit margin is higher or lower, you should adjust the percentage in Step 2 accordingly, but 40% ensures you are pricing correctly and building a sustainable company, not just a job.

Q2. What if I don’t know my Average Event Ticket (AET) or hours per event?

You are operating without a map! Knowing these data points is the very first step in scaling. As I said in the episode:

“If you don’t know these numbers for your own business, I’m gonna encourage you to go find them or to come book a call with our team and book a free gap assessment so that we can walk you through how to do that…”

You need systems to track this data. Until you know your AET and work hours, you cannot confidently hire or price your services for profit.

Q3. I’m afraid to take on 45 events. How do I manage that workload?

The burden of 45 events is not on you, CEO. That is the new hire’s capacity. The freedom you buy back allows you to step out of the daily execution and focus on high-leverage activities, like optimizing your sales funnel, building strategic partnerships, or creating new revenue streams. You are investing in their capacity, not adding to your own workload.

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💌For business inquiries: sayhello@weddingproceo.com

Heads up, CEO! Some of the links I share may be affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you decide to purchase—at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools and resources I actually use and love, and that I believe will help you grow a profitable, sustainable business you’re obsessed with.