Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / 6 things I have learnt over the summer break!

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6 things I have learnt over the summer break! · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

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Becca: Just like that, it's September, the summer is over,
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kids are back to school and normal service resumes here on the podcast.
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And today I'm going to be talking about the six things I've
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learned over the summer break.
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I'm Becca Pountney, Wedding Business Marketing Expert, Speaker and Blogger,
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and you're listening to the Wedding Pros Who Are Ready to Grow podcast.
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I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies and real life
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examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
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If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
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and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you
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love, then you're in the right place.
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Let's get going with today's episode.
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I actually cannot believe we are in September already.
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Where has the summer gone?
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I trust that you've had a good summer, whether you've been working really hard,
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at lots of weddings, or going on holiday, or just like me, juggling your children.
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I hope you've had a good time.
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I also hope you've enjoyed our summer series here on the podcast.
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Over the month of August, I was sharing with you some of the
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behind the scenes content from my Wedding Pro Members Lounge.
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The content that's normally available for members only, But this summer
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I opened it up for the podcast.
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If you haven't listened to all those episodes yet, do
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go back and listen to them.
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There's some really great stuff in there and I hope you enjoyed it.
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And if you want more of where that came from, then why not consider
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joining the Wedding Pro Members Lounge?
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We've got some amazing trainees coming up this season as well as some social events
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and lots and lots of accountability too.
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So if you want more information about the Wedding Pro Members
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Lounge, go to the show notes.
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There is not a better time to join than the autumn.
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Okay.
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In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about six things that
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I learned over the summer break and how I think they can help you
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move your wedding business forward.
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So the first one is going to be an obvious one, but I think it's something that I'm
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not very good at doing and you're probably not doing very good at doing either.
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And that is taking a break.
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I mean, a proper break.
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I went on a couple of little holidays and trips away over the summer but quite
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frankly when you're self employed it's really really hard to take an actual break
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and if you're anything like me you end up working and doing bits and pieces all
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the time and honestly it just leads to being burnt out and you're not fresh and
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you're not thinking of your best ideas.
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So I want to encourage you, as I encourage myself, that sometimes
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you do need to take a break, even if it's just for two or three days.
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And what I actually ended up doing over the summer, I went away just me
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and the husband without any children.
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And for three nights we went away and in the end I was like,
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I need to take a proper break.
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I'm burning out.
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I need time to think.
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I need time to reset.
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And what I did in the end was put on my out of office.
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That's always a good step.
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Tell people that you're away.
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I always make my out of office useful to people.
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So don't just write, I'm out of the office, but actually put some links
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on there or a link to your podcast.
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If you've got one or a link to your pricing page or a link to your contact
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page or your diary or whatever it is, use it for something useful so
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that people will, you know, Enjoy getting your out of office rather than
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just getting a I'm not here email.
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So I put my office on and then while I was away, I actually locked
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my phone most days in the safe.
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And the reason is because if I have my phone in my hand, quite
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frankly, I'm not taking a break.
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I don't know if you're like me.
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Either I'm getting notifications, Facebook posts, I'm seeing things on
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Instagram, I'm seeing all sorts of stuff going on in my phone, WhatsApp
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messages, phone calls, emails.
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And once I've seen it, I find it really hard to ignore it.
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So the best way for me to deal with that is to just lock it away.
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So that's what I did this summer.
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Over those few days, I locked my phone in the safe and I cannot
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tell you how beneficial just that few days away from everything was.
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Just lying there without a phone.
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I actually read a book and just lying there thinking,
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resting, sleeping, enjoying.
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the company of the person that I'm with was amazing.
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And it does make you feel fresher.
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It does help you come back with a fresh perspective.
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I came up with some great ideas because my head was clear and
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it wasn't full of the business.
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And guess what?
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Nothing fell apart in my absence.
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Sometimes I think we think if we take a break away, that we'll lose
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work or everything will fall apart.
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But actually sometimes our own break is worth it.
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So that's my first learning is an obvious one, but it definitely
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needs to happen for all of us more.
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And that is take a break.
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And if you cannot remember the last time you took a break, or you can't
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imagine how long it is till the next time you take a break, that's
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probably a sign that you need to do it.
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Get some self control, lock away your phone, put your out of
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office on and just go enjoy life.
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Be in the moment for a few days.
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Okay, the second thing that I learned, and it's on a similar track really,
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is that outsourcing is an incredible opportunity, especially when you're busy.
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Now there's things in our business that we have to do, but there are things in our
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business that at times we can outsource.
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And I am also a little bit reluctant sometimes to outsource things
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that I know I can do myself.
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But sometimes when we're time poor, we can actually outsource things that
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we know that we could do ourselves.
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But.
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actually, someone else has a little bit more time to do for us.
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Now, you may have seen over the summer on Instagram and on email, I've been
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talking about my Kickstarter campaign.
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So for a while, I've been talking about bringing out my book.
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We are so close to bring out the book, but I realized at the start of the summer that
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the costs of the book were escalating.
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And I was worried about having the finances to pay for it.
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And so I came up with this idea of launching a Kickstarter so
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that people could pre order the book and get various rewards.
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And in return, I was guaranteed to see that I was getting some money into
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the bank account to pay for some of the costs, like the editing and the
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printing costs, that kind of thing.
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But it was almost the start of the summer holidays.
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I was drowning and there was absolutely no way I had time to set up this Kickstarter.
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So I relented and I thought, actually, I do need to outsource this to someone.
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And so I outsourced it to one of my team.
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And it was probably the best thing I've done because they
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built my Kickstarter for me.
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They helped me come up with the rewards.
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They helped me come up with some social media content to
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talk about the Kickstarter.
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They made sure everything was effective and running.
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And then all they did was send me the link so that I could share it with people.
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And It was amazing and it was very little work for me.
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They did a great job.
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Yes, I could have set it up myself, but I just didn't have
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time to do it over the summer.
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And actually I managed to launch the Kickstarter and hit the Kickstarter target
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all during the summer holidays when I haven't been able to do very much work.
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And that's all down to the fact that I outsourced it.
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Now, if I'd have been stubborn, I could have said, no, I'm going
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to do that when I get back in September, I will do it myself.
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I will not pay someone else to do it, but now I would be having to do it
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and I wouldn't be closer to that goal.
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Whereas now, because I outsourced it, it's more than paid for itself.
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I've got the goal.
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I'm still selling books and I'm in a much better place.
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So sometimes we do need to outsource things, even if we
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know we can do them ourselves.
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Sometimes you can just outsource things for a short amount of time at the wedding.
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agency.
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One of the reasons I set it up in the way that I did is that we can offer
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short term support for people because sometimes you don't need support
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all year round, but there may be a couple of months in the year, or maybe
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you've got something special going on.
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Perhaps you've got a really busy season or you just need a bit of ad
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hoc help just at a certain time with something like building a page or
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updating something on your website.
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And that's where we can help you.
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So if you do find yourself needing some help outsourcing, I
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cannot recommend my team enough.
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They did an amazing job for me and they can do an amazing job for you as well.
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So do get in touch, but don't hold off on outsourcing.
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Sometimes it's better to outsource, even though you could do it yourself.
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It just frees you up to be doing other things or to be present with your family,
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which is what I was doing over the summer.
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Okay, number three on the things I learned over the summer.
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This one's a little bit embarrassing for me, but I'm going to share this
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story anyway because I think it's a really good reminder to us all
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that people do not read emails.
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Sometimes as wedding business owners or wedding venue owners, we send out emails
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to our clients or prospective clients and it feels like they're ignoring us.
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Perhaps we need a certain piece of information.
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Perhaps we need an answer to a question.
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Maybe we're waiting for something from them and yet it feels like they're
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ignoring us, they're ghosting us, maybe they've disappeared off the
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planet, maybe they're just rude because they're not replying to our email or
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they haven't answered our question.
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And I want to reiterate that maybe actually they just haven't read the
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email because often people skim read emails, don't read all of the details.
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How often I've read an email, thought I'd actually everything in it but
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there was actually something buried in the middle of it that I clearly
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skimmed across and people do that to me all of the time as well.
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I'll ask them, I'll send a follow up email saying I just wondered if you
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saw my new So we're not very good at reading, our attention spans are poor.
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Now the reason this came to my attention over the summer particularly is
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because I am quite an organized person.
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I do often go on my emails and I feel like I'm the person who does read all of the
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emails, but it turns out maybe I'm not.
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So with my friends over the summer, we booked to go and do a Disney.
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Brunch.
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A bottomless brunch with Disney songs sung by live performers.
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It was incredible for any Disney lover like me.
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We went out for a night out and I was the one who planned it
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because I absolutely love Disney.
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I booked the tickets, paid for the tickets, everyone paid me back, and then
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the day of the event came and one of my lovely friends messaged me and said,
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Were we supposed to pre order food?
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Because I've been looking at the details about today and I noticed on
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the website it said that food will need to be pre ordered and you haven't
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asked us to pre order anything.
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So I replied straight back and said, oh that's strange because
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I definitely haven't had an email about pre ordering food.
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Maybe we just do it when we get there.
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So then I went on the website and read the same thing and I thought to
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myself, have I missed something here?
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So I went back through my emails and searched for the email name of the
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people that were organising the event.
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And it turned out I actually had four.
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Five emails asking me to pre order the food that I had clearly overlooked,
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ignored, not read, and it was totally my fault, but it absolutely
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backed up the fact that people don't read emails because they're busy
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because they've got things going on.
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Maybe I'd read it and thought it was spam and hadn't realized it was an email that
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I actually need to do something about.
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Anyway, crisis averted.
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I rang them up.
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I said, sorry, that hadn't pre ordered.
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They let me pre order over the phone and all was well, but it didn't work.
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It served as a good reminder that people don't always read emails, even
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when they have the best intentions.
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I had the best intentions.
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I was planning a night out.
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I obviously wanted to order my food and I still hadn't seen the reminder.
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And I was shocked myself when I looked back and realized
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they'd emailed me five times.
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Now they hadn't ever picked up the phone.
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And sometimes we do need to look at other ways of communicating with people.
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If you haven't heard back or you've got an urgent thing you need to know, just
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pick up the phone and ask the question.
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Because if they'd have rung me, I'd have Sorted it out straight away.
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However, it doesn't excuse my poor behavior.
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I should read my emails, but this day and age, remember lots of people don't.
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Okay.
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That brings me then onto number four.
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The fourth thing I've learned this summer is that it's okay to be authentically us.
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And it's okay to be honest.
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These are things that I talk about a lot, but you know, I
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need to practice what I preach.
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As I mentioned earlier in the summer, Kickstarter campaign for my book.
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And I had one person, I had a lot of people actually comment.
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Positively, but you know, there's always one negative Nelly.
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I had one person say really odd comments to me and it was something
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along the lines of, Oh, don't you think that's weird marketing to do that?
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Don't you think you look like you haven't got it all together or don't you
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want to show a different perspective?
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Like you've got everything perfectly.
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If you're trying to help people run a business.
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And I thought about that.
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I reflected on it and I thought actually.
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No, because I teach people to be authentically themselves and
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business isn't plain sailing.
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And I don't think it's true that most of us are standing
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waiting to get on a private jet.
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Yes, I live a great life.
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Yes, sometimes good things happen, but we are living in the real world and
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sometimes, It's harder than other times.
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And when I planned to write a book, I hadn't really estimated
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how much it was going to cost.
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I hadn't realized it was going to cost as much as it was.
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And it is a large outlay.
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And so to me, it did make sense to pre order it for people so that
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I could get that money up front.
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And by sharing my story, I've been sharing the story all
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the way along with this book.
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book.
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I've been doing a real series about helping me to write a book, explaining
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how hard it is, explaining the process and getting people alongside me.
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And so for me, launching the Kickstarter was just a follow on from that.
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And I think people appreciate sometimes when you're just
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honest and you're yourself.
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I think if we try to pretend that we're perfect, like we've got it all
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together, like our wedding business is thriving 100 percent of the time,
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we're thriving 100 percent of the time, but nothing ever goes wrong.
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That's not really reality.
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That's the Instagram version of perfection.
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Maybe that's marketing.
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But actually, if we want people to connect with us and to understand what
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life's like and to work with us, then sometimes it's okay to just be ourselves.
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So I have no regrets about my Kickstarter campaign.
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It's a great way for people to get rewards and you can get some great
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stuff by, by joining in with it.
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And no, to the person that thinks it was a bad move, I personally don't believe
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it was a bad move because now I can help me bring the book into the world.
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And my debut book, Done Is Better Than Perfect, will be ready in
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November, which is incredibly exciting.
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And I know I've mentioned it on the podcast a few times.
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It was a pipe dream.
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It's now fast becoming a reality.
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And I'd love you to pre order a copy as well.
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So I will put the link to that in the show notes.
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Okay, moving on to the fifth thing that I've learned over
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the summer break, and it's this.
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Owning a business is not an easy ride.
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If you started your wedding business because you wanted life to be
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easy, then I've got news for you.
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Owning a business is not an easy ride.
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Yes, it's very rewarding.
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Yes, there are some perks and benefits, but I promise you
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it's not an easy ride at all.
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I've actually found this summer really difficult.
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It's probably the hardest summer that I've had since owning my business.
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And I think that's for a couple of different reasons.
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So I've always taken the summer off.
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I love being with the kids over the summer.
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It's why I went self employed in the first place.
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But as my business has grown and developed and I've got team members
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and I've got an agency and I've got a podcast, you know, it's not so
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easy to just take the summer off.
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And I think this summer was the first time that I've really
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struggled to find that good balance.
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Because I did have lots of work, and I didn't want to let anyone down, and I have
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been incredibly busy, but I also still wanted to keep that time with my family.
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It's precious to me, that's why I went self employed in the first place.
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So it's been a real struggle, and I've been reflecting over why that is,
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and I think I've suffered really with a lot of guilt over the summer, so.
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I've had work to do so I felt guilty for not getting my work done or for not
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helping my team enough or for not getting things done as quickly as I could or
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replying to people as quickly as I could.
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But then also I felt guilty if I spend time working during the day
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because I'm self employed so I can have fun with the kids and do
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stuff with them over the summer.
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And then I felt guilty working in the evening because my husband comes home and
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I want to spend time with him as well.
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And so it's Basically resulted in a summer being all over the place.
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And I think it has been a struggle.
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I definitely need something I need to address next year.
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I need to think through how to do the summer better.
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I don't think there's an easy answer at all to that.
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However.
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Good to remember that it's not easy for any of us.
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None of us have this perfect life.
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People who are employed find it incredibly difficult over
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the summer to find child care.
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People who are self employed, we find it incredibly difficult
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over the summer as well.
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And being self employed is not an easy ride.
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There will be months when you think you're not sure where
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your money's going to come from.
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There'll be months where you feel burnout.
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There'll be months where your creative juices don't feel like they're
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flowing and you can't think about anything to put on social media.
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There'll be months where you feel like just jacking it all in and going to work
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at Tesco's and it's not easy, but rest assured, everyone has times like that.
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I do my accountability calls every single month.
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with my members.
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They're called the lounge calls.
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And every month we get together and we go through goal setting targets and we
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reflect back on the previous months.
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And what I find really interesting is that different people show up on the
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call and sometimes people come up and they're having a really tough month.
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And then a few months later, they're on the same call and they're talking
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about how great everything is.
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And it shows that everyone goes through troughs because when
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someone's having a good month, someone else is having a struggle.
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And when someone else is having a struggle, someone
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else is having a good month.
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And if you are in that period of struggle, Just know it's not forever.
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There are ways forward.
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There are ways to deal with it.
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And sometimes we do have to make difficult decisions in business.
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Sometimes we do have to stop paying for something.
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Sometimes we do need to look at other ways to market ourselves.
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Sometimes we do need to look at whether we do part time work
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alongside building our business.
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And sometimes we do have to come to a decision The business isn't quite right
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for us and all of those things are okay.
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It's not easy.
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And if you come to one of these decisions, it doesn't mean you failed.
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It just means you've made the right decision for you and where you're at.
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So I hope that's encouraging for you.
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It's not been easy for me over the summer.
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Am I about to give up?
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No.
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Do I need to look at how things are different next summer?
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Probably.
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Am I excited about the autumn?
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Absolutely.
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And.
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Are we going to have different times of year which are difficult for each of us?
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Yes, we are.
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And that's perfectly normal and a perfectly normal way
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of being self employed.
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And anyone who tells you anything different, well, I don't believe them.
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Okay, then that brings me then on to number six.
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My final learning over the summer, and that is that you are
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a business owner, so you need to take back control of your business.
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Now, this really is about some of my members rather than about me, but
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over the summer, I've noticed a bit of a theme in some of the posts that
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have been coming in from my members.
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about clients trying to take control of the situation.
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And each time I've had to remind my members about boundaries and about the
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fact that we went self employed so that we can make our own decisions, so that
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we could say no to things we didn't want to do, so that we could do things
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in our own way and build our own life, not have that nine to five job where
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we have to go to lunch at a certain time and be in work at a certain time.
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But sometimes our clients like to push those boundaries.
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Sometimes they might ask us for something that doesn't quite feel
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right or is a little bit outside of our remit of what we offer.
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Sometimes someone might ask us for a massive discount that we just
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know that we can't say yes to.
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Sometimes people might take advantage of contacting us really
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late at night or asking for us to do something really last minute.
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And it's just a reminder really that all of us We're, we're able to say no.
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We are entitled to say no.
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You don't have to say yes to things.
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We need to set boundaries.
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You can go back and say, I don't reply to emails at this time of
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night, or unfortunately it's too late notice for me to do that.
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However, if you want to pay an additional fee, I might be
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able to make something happen.
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You are in control of your business.
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Remember that don't let your customers control you.
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You set the boundaries, you set the rules and the more you let people.
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Push those boundaries and break those boundaries.
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The more they'll take advantage of you and the more you'll find
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yourself running into the ground.
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Perhaps there's a supplier that you don't really enjoy working with or
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a venue that you find difficult.
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Well, it's okay to say no to weddings at that venue.
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If you want to, it's your business.
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You do not have to take on any work.
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It's okay.
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Absolutely fine for you to say, sorry, I can't make that because you know, you
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don't want to work at that venue or I'm not prepared to work at that wedding
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because of X person being involved.
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Now you might not say it like that.
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You might find a different reason, but you know, your reason, and
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it's absolutely okay to say no.
19:18
So it's just a reminder, really, that.
19:20
It's your business.
19:20
At the end of the day, you don't have to say yes to anything.
19:23
That's why you went self employed in the first place.
19:25
And maybe it's time as we go into September and into the
19:28
autumn, winter season for you to reevaluate those boundaries.
19:31
I think setting clear boundaries right at the start of your
19:33
onboarding process is a great idea.
19:36
We've had some great episodes here on the podcast.
19:38
All about setting boundaries as well that you can go back and listen to.
19:42
But just a reminder, have you pushed the boundaries too far?
19:45
Do you need to rein people back in again, or do you need to make it
19:48
clearer in your onboarding process?
19:50
What you will and won't tolerate and what the system is.
19:55
Okay, so to recap, it has been a juggle for me this summer, but
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I've had a lot of good times.
20:01
I've been to Legoland, I've been to Bournemouth, I've had fun, I've
20:04
laughed, I've joked, I've seen friends and I've absolutely loved
20:07
spending time with my kids, but I have learned some lessons as well.
20:10
So to recap, these are the lessons learned over the summer.
20:13
Number one, take that break, lock your phone away, put it in the
20:16
safe, get an out of office on and just take some time for you.
20:20
Secondly, don't be afraid to outsource Tasks, even if you know you can do
20:23
them yourself, sometimes you just need someone else to take it off you because
20:26
they've got more time than you do.
20:28
Thirdly, remember people don't read emails.
20:31
I didn't read five emails about a brunch.
20:33
I know it's ridiculous, but your clients are probably ridiculous too.
20:36
So send another email, ask in a different way, pick up the
20:39
phone if you need an answer.
20:40
And remember, not everyone reads their emails properly.
20:44
Next up is, it's okay to be honest.
20:46
Don't pretend everything's perfect all of the time.
20:48
If you need help with something, if you're struggling with something
20:51
or something's not going well.
20:52
It's absolutely fine to ask for help and be authentically you.
20:56
Number five is to remember that being in business is not an easy ride.
21:00
If you think it is, then you're clearly not sure what's going on with you, because
21:05
I want some of what you've got, because for most of us, it's not an easy ride.
21:09
There are some months that are going to be better than others.
21:11
There'll be some months when you want to give it all up.
21:13
There'll be some months where you think it's the best thing
21:14
ever, and it's totally normal.
21:16
That's why having a great day.
21:17
Membership that like the Wedding Pro Members lounge, a community of people
21:20
where you can share those ups and downs is so helpful because they will put
21:24
you back on the straight and narrow.
21:25
When you're feeling rubbish, they'll encourage you when you're feeling
21:28
great, they'll celebrate you.
21:29
And honestly, it's the best thing ever.
21:31
And the final thing is take back control.
21:33
Don't let your customers rule you.
21:35
It's your business.
21:35
At the end of the day, you don't have to say yes to anything.
21:38
You're absolutely fine to set the boundaries and do the things you want.
21:42
It's great to be back.
21:43
I hope you have a great week.
21:44
And I'll see you all next time.