Maximizing Profitability in the Wedding Industry

“The hardest part of my career was building my business in a way that was ready for success.”

Brandee Gaar

Episode 1/4: Maximizing Profitability in the Wedding Industry | The Confetti Hour Podcast

Hey there, CEOs. Welcome to the Wedding Pro CEO podcast. Every year on this show, we like to take a month where we highlight other industry podcasts that we love, and I know you will too.

In this episode, I was a guest on The Confetti Hour Podcast this year and we talked all about my favorite topic, profit. We’re dishing all the dirt on the numbers you need to know in your business and why they’re so important to your success. You guys know how much I LOVE talking about money and profit!

I’m so excited to showcase the Confetti Hour podcast with Renee Sabo. We shared insights on how to make sure your business is profitable!

This is part 1 of the 4-part series for the month of July, where I share with you episodes from other great podcasts that can help you grow your wedding planning business. It was an honor sharing my thoughts on The Confetti Hour Podcast!

Some key highlights from the episode:

• It does not matter what your sales are if you don’t know what your profit is!
• Stop overpaying staff and undervaluing your biz!
• How much are your wedding packages producing?

It does not matter what your sales are if you don’t know what your profit is!

I don’t know why in the coaching industry everyone insists on talking about their income. I don’t even understand that. You hear people all the time be like, I did seven figures, but the real question is what is your profit like? What do you make off of that? Are you paying yourself? That’s the first thing
that I want people to understand is like, don’t be driving towards six figures or multiple six figures. If you don’t even know what your profit is.

You don’t have a purpose if you don’t have profit. And this is something I think
kind of hits people the wrong way when they first hear it, because they’re like, well that’s a terrible thing to say. But the truth is, when you started your business you started it for a reason. Whether that was for more time freedom, more wealth, or to be able to see your kids more, etc. The first thing I want you to understand is that profit is a necessary part of your business. Paying yourself a salary is a necessary part of your business.

“You don’t get to serve your clients if your business doesn’t exist anymore.”

Brandee Gaar

Stop overpaying staff and undervaluing your biz!

The other thing that I think wedding planners in particular get wrong is that we overpay our staff! The reason I say that is because a lot of wedding planners in particular pay their team on a commission basis. So it’ll be like, “Hey, if you start doing weddings with me, then I’ll pay you a percentage of the package.” Well, most of the time what I hear, that percentage is 60% or 70%, and I want to cry. That’s so HIGH!

The reason we do it at 60 or 70% is because in our head we’re like, well, they’re doing all the work. I’m just booking the client. But the piece you forget is that you built the reputation to book the client. You had to get the client. You carry the insurance, you pay the credit card fees, it’s your brand image, it’s your butt. If they don’t show up, like there’s so much on the backend that you have to do to run that business. 40% is the threshold that you should keep your contractors at.

When you’re paying somebody more than that, there’s no flow through for you
to pay yourself simply to be the CEO of the business. So when you want to start stepping back from the
day-to-day but your business doesn’t produce enough income to pay you to be the CEO because you’re paying your staff so much.

So what I always like to tell people is like, your business has to pay you just to
be the business owner because if your income as the business owner is a hundred percent tied to how many weddings you do, there’s no time for you to be the business owner. There’s no time for you to
focus on the growth of the business and to network and sell it.

How much are your wedding packages producing?

The second piece of that is really understanding. How much time goes into your packages? Day of coordination for planners is actually a decent package. The problem comes in when you then sell your partial plan and full plan, or your bigger packages and you just increase the price a little bit because it just sounds like it’s getting too high when you double or triple it.

So what you end up realizing is that you might be making $80 an hour if they sell their basic package, but they’re only making like $42 an hour when they sell their bigger package. It sounds like it’s so great to sell their biggest package because it’s like look at all this money I’m bringing in but you’re actually making half. So really helping people to understand that and see their profitability for all of their services and keep it consistent is a big piece of what I teach.

Check out my profitable services download!

Listen Now to Episode 193 of the Wedding Pro CEO Podcast, Maximizing Profitability in the Wedding Industry: Brandee Guest on Confetti Hour Podcast

The link is above or listen and subscribe to the Podcast where you listen to podcasts!

DM me on Instagram or post your thoughts in the facebook group! (links are below)

Bye for now!!!😊

Want more of this?

Join the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator: a monthly cohort to help you build the profitable business you’ve always dreamed of!

Don’t forget to Join our FREE Facebook Community

Please share your biggest takeaway and review our podcast HERE!