The Best Investments I Made for My Business This Year

If you’ve been hanging around our blog for a while, you should know by now that there’s no “secret formula” for growing your business. Building a wedding planning business or any creative business takes time, patience, and perseverance. That being said, there are a few investments you can make to fast-track your business’s growth.

I know investments can feel risky, especially if you’re just a year or two into your business and probably not making your goal income yet. But being in the wedding industry for nearly 15 years has taught me that investments pay off if you’re investing in the correct areas — the areas that will help boost your business’s sales, draw in high-quality clients, and help you work on your business rather than in your business. 

In today’s post, I’ll go over the three best investments I made for my business this year, why they helped fast-track my growth, and what they can offer you!

1: Rebranding with Carrylove Designs

By now, you’ve probably heard me once or twice about rebranding with Carrylove Designs. 😉 Rebranding both my wedding planning business, Blush, and this coaching business definitely makes it to the top three of the best investments I made this year. And we’re not talking about a simple copy refresh and new logo design — no, we’re talking about the whole package here.

I mentioned on this She Who Dares podcast episode with Amanda Shuman, the founder of Carrylove Designs, that we received a 38-page brand strategy document filled with absolutely every puzzle piece you could think of when it comes to putting together a brand. From a breakdown of our brand personality to an ideal clientele profile to tone of voice to colors and their psychology — you name it, it was in there.

And this brand strategy document wasn’t necessarily provided because we didn’t know who we served or who we are. We were lucky enough to start out with a great foundation for Brandee Gaar coaching, and Blush has been in business long enough that we knew exactly the types of brides we loved to work with. Rather, this brand strategy document helped us build awareness behind the things we intuitively knew about our business so we could move forward with strategy and prioritize where we could grow even more. (You all know that I’m a huge fan of leading by strategy!)

After about half a year, we finally debuted our rebrand and I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome! Not only did we have a gorgeous new website and logo, but both of my businesses perfectly represent the type of professional wedding planners my team has become, the type of coach I’ve become, and the type of clients that energize us and boost our creativity.

If a rebrand has been on your mind, check out these two resources that will help you decide:

• This blog post, where I break down how to know if you’re ready for a rebrand
• The episode with Amanda and Carrylove Designs mentioned earlier. She talks all about the strategy behind this coaching business’s rebrand strategy and the 4 types of clients who are ready for a rebrand.

My two cents, though? If you’ve been considering a rebrand, it’s probably time. If you know you’re ready, click here to get an exclusive discount with Carrylove Designs just for this community!

2: Coaching

Behind every coach is a great coach. In reality, very few coaches intuitively know how to coach right from the beginning. So it truly does take a coach to become a coach! By hiring a coach this year, Allie Bjerk, I learned how to teach others and meet them where they are on their journey. The result?

I’m able to impact so many more business owners because I can meet them where they are in their business. I also learned how to create an offer suite and a comprehensive client journey, which helps me help my clients with what they want and need! It’s our job as sales people (because remember, we’re also sales people!) take them on a journey where they feel confident working with us coaches.

With Allie, I decided to do 1:1 coaching, which is not only my favorite way to learn but also my favorite way to teach! I Love courses and groups, of course, but 1:1 is so customized to the student, and you can really pour fuel into their fire by getting to know them and getting into the nitty gritty to help them rethink the way they’re currently operating.

But I think the biggest benefit I found to 1:1 coaching was that Allie was able to push me outside of my comfort zone to help me see how much value I can offer my students. And now, I feel more confident than ever to help them realize they do have the expertise to solve the problem their clients face, and to cure my clients’ worries and anxieties about their abilities. I teach them how to believe in themselves, and to be the Target of their industry where people come for one thing but leave with so much more!

3: Getting legally legit with The Legal Paige

Becoming legally legit is an aspect too many entrepreneurs overlook. But it’s incredibly important to build that rock-solid foundation and make sure all your bases are covered before you take on any clients.

I know that this aspect is one of the most intimidating steps to take when building a business, though. That’s why I’m such a huge fan of The Legal Paige, and thrilled to introduce you to her services if you haven’t heard of her already!

Paige isn’t just any lawyer — she’s a lawyer who graduated top of her class, landed a sought-after federal clerkship, interned at prestigious firms, and became a small business owner. After discovering there were a ton of creative entrepreneurs who didn’t understand how to run a legally legit business, she opened The Legal Paige’s doors to help these business owners with the legal side of the business without the overwhelm.

How does she do this? With easy-to-use, ready-made contract templates! On her collections page, you can select the contract you need. Every template is attorney drafted and reviewed, created with fill-in-the-blanks and editable sections, “legal mumbo jumbo-free,” and comes with a lifetime access to template updates.

This year, I made it a point to be on top of our legal game, so we stocked up on templates. My favorites that I use are the employee contract, independent contractor contract, and event planner contract. All are necessary for your business!

Make sure your business is legally legit — click here and use the code ‘brandee’ to get 10% off your purchase on templates and contracts!

Final thoughts

Investments are almost always going to feel intimidating at the beginning. But you’ll have to invest in your business at some point if you’re hoping to grow and scale. Hopefully, this blog post helped you overcome any limiting beliefs you have about investing in your business!