Stop Saying You Don’t Have Overhead (spoiler alert…you do!)

Transcript of Short 35

“Okay, well we’re going to actually show that you have a ton of overhead by the end of this conversation.”

Okay, on today’s Thursday short, I am talking all about overhead.

And I know this is almost like a dirty word in the wedding industry, right?

What I’ve noticed is that so often when I sit down with a new student, a new wedding pro business owner that is ready to scale their business, one of the first conversations we have is about their numbers.

And I always ask, “Okay, tell me about your overhead. I want to know a little bit about how much overhead that you have.”

And the answer I notoriously get is, “Well, I don’t really have much overhead. Like a couple things here and there.”

And I’m like, “Okay, well we’re going to actually show that you have a ton of overhead by the end of this conversation.”

And the reason for that is because a lot of times in our industry, because we’re service based, the bulk of our overhead is labor. Right?

It’s ourselves or if we have a VA or if we have assistants at work for us or associate planners, a lot of that is the labor.

But we forget that that is actually about half of our total overhead.

And if we’re not paying ourselves, then we’re really not including all of the overhead that we need to include for our business. Right?

In addition to the labor, we also have all of these little subscriptions that we sign up for.

I’m positive that there’s at least a handful of you out there that are like, “Yes, girrlll!! girrrlll The subscriptions that I have, they all add up.”

We forget about them because it’s like $12 here, $9 there, $7 here, but that’s every single month.

And when you look at it on an annual basis, you start to realize how expensive all of those little subscriptions add up to be.

Plus all of your advertising, your bridal shows, networking events, it really all adds up.

And so what happens is when we think we have very little overhead and we don’t account for every single dollar coming in and going out of our business.

That’s how we get to the end of the month and we think,” Oh my gosh, I’m burnt out. I’m literally fried. I’ve worked a hundred hours a week this month, and there’s no money left in the bank account to show for it and I still haven’t paid myself.”

And that is OVERWHELMING.

It’s how most small businesses end up failing because it’s not sustainable to run your business that way.

Tony Robbins says, ” Where there’s no margin, there’s no mission.”

What that means is if you aren’t creating enough margin in your business to be able to cover all of your expenses.

Including yourself as the owner.

Then at some point it’s not sustainable and your mission can’t continue.

So understanding you are part of the overhead because your business doesn’t exist without you.

This is the most important piece of business that we need to understand.

“And you guys know I love talking about numbers, so I want to invite you to go over to BrandeeGaar.com/budget“

And you guys know I love talking about numbers, so I want to invite you to go over to BrandeeGaar.com/budget

You may have heard in last week’s episode.

Episode 153 That I talked all about how to price your packages for profit.

One of the tabs in my profit planning worksheet, we use the profitable services template.

So if you’ve already downloaded that template, you’re just going go to tab one, which is going be all of your expenses, how to track all of your expenses.

If you did not listen to that episode, I would highly encourage you to go back and listen to episode 1 53, all about pricing your packages for profit, and I would encourage you to download the worksheet.

It’s totally free.

On this episode, I really wanted to just very quickly walk you through how to track your expenses.

If you download that worksheet, it’s going to give you all of the main categories that most wedding pros will have for their business.

These are going be things like, mileage, gas, advertising, publishing, labor, contract labor, bookkeeping, legal fees, networking, conferences and education.

It’s all on there.

And it’s going calculate all of this for you.

What I want you to do is I want you to go through that worksheet and I want you to fill in every single area.

And I also want you to add in any areas where you may have something that’s not already in there.

For example, the subscriptions category is typically going to be your highest category, okay?

It’s going be the one that you have the most of because here in the wedding industry, we have Canva , we have Zoom, we have Loom, we have Flow Desk, your CRM, you’re Google Suite

There’s so many. Right?

So you’re going really want to make sure that you capture every single one of those.

Even if something is $10 a year, I still want you to capture it.

What you’re going see is at the end it’s going show you your monthly break even amount. Okay?

So it’s going show you how much all of your expenses are monthly.

Then it’s also going show you that number annually.

And the reason I like to look at it annually is because when you have something that’s only $12 a month, it sounds like, “Ugh, it’s only $12. Who cares?”

But then when you look at it annually and you’re like, “Wow, that’s almost $150 a year!”

You start thinking about it differently.

“So every single year when I do my budget, I always like to look at those subscriptions, annually, because I really want to evaluate, how necessary they are to me operating my business and if I can eliminate any of them.”

It’s like, do I actually need that subscription or is it just something I signed up for that I’ve never actually gone back and used.

So every single year when I do my budget, I always like to look at those subscriptions, annually, because I really want to evaluate, how necessary they are to me operating my business and if I can eliminate any of them.

I really want you to look at when you’re doing your expenses. I want to make sure that you as the owner are being compensated for your time in your business.

If you can eliminate two or three, that’s going be several hundred dollars that you can eliminate from your budget.

This is so important.

It’s absolutely necessary that you pay yourself from your business.

When I first started doing these exercises and when my husband first quit his job 10 years ago, I actually only paid myself $18,000 a year.

So I’m not telling you that you have to go out and pay yourself a five figure salary, like I’m not telling you that.

Or six figure salary, right?

But I am telling you that you’ve got to start somewhere.

Even if it’s a thousand dollars a month or $1,500 a month.

You have to start getting in the habit of making your pay as the owner part of the expenses of your business.

If you do not exist, your business does not exist.

Until you scale it to a point where you are no longer involved in your business, you’ve got to be able to pay yourself.

And I really think that helps with your family relationships as well.

If you have a partner or spouse or just family that’s saying, “Hey, when is this business going start paying you something?”

You can start to say, “Actually, it does pay me.”

And you can start to build on that year over year.

As you make more money, you can pay yourself more money.

But it’s really, really important that you understand that you are a part of the overhead of your business.

So I want you to head over to BrandeeGaar.com/budget, and I would love for you to download that worksheet and go through all of your expenses and make sure that you capture every single thing on that expense spreadsheet. ?

And the cool thing about it too is that once you get to the end and you can see what your monthly break even is now you know, “okay, my expenses are $4,000 a month, including pay for myself.

Now you know every single month how much money needs to come in from either final payments, middle payments or new sales, so you know which months are going be totally fine and which months might be a little bit slim.

This is a really, really important exercise.

If you are interested in learning more about knowing your numbers and setting goals and how to understand all of your finances and how to scale your finances, I would love to invite you to my budget workshop.

Save your spot for the Budget Workshop! Click Here!

I’m only going be doing it one time this year.

One time I’m going be doing it live.

Otherwise, it is a pre-recorded course in my suite of courses. You can take it anytime.

But I do think that there’s a lot of value in this live workshop because I’ll be right there with you, walking you through how to build your expenses, how to build your packages, and how to set your sales goals for next year.

“Last year we had over 60 people go through this workshop and the change that I have seen in their businesses is absolutely mind blowing!!”

I’m only going be selling 40 tickets to this live Zoom virtual workshop.

So you can do that by just clicking the link to grab your spot.

It’s going be on October 11th at 11:00 AM Eastern.

There will be a replay.

Last year we had over 60 people go through this workshop and the change that I have seen in their businesses is absolutely mind blowing!!

I can’t think of anything else besides understanding your finances that will help you to scale your business.

Once you understand how many dollars are coming in and how many are going out, and exactly what they’re for, and how much you need to book each month to make sure you show a profit, the confidence that you have in your business is a whole new level.

When you’re selling yourself, you now know that you’re worth every single penny, because you didn’t just make up those numbers.

You know what you need to build a thriving business and to deliver on what you’ve sold.

I really love seeing business owners eyes just light up when they start to understand their finances.

I really teach it from that perspective.

I’m not an accountant.

I do teach this workshop from a perspective of I am a business owner. I’ve learned how to understand my numbers and how to know them.

It’s just a really, really fun workshop.

I invite you to join me.

We only have 40 seats.

“I really love seeing business owners eyes just light up when they start to understand their finances.”

Grab your seat and I will see you on October 11th.

Thank you so much for being here and I will see you next time.

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