Build your BusINESS better
Picture this, you have a dream of owning your own business, and you love helping couples who are head over heads for each other, join together in that love. Maybe you love music, photography, planning, and/or offering your space to lovely couples who want to profess their love to one another. You’ve got the idea, you’ve got the passion, you’ve got the know how. the world is your oyster! Before we move on…I should warn you.. this isn’t a “how to” create a business, that can be found in future posts. This post… this is for the ones who have been feeling stuck. The ones who have been doing it for a while, and haven’t gotten anywhere, or maybe their clientele has dropped off.
Starting a business can be overwhelming. First, you’ll need to file a business through your state. You can hire a lawyer, who will submit all of your paperwork, fees, and ensure you get your business name, or you can do it yourself, which can be found to be pretty simple. But before you submit everything to the state, you’ll also want to check with your county. Depending on what you want to do, you may need to simply submit a few forms for your county. For a venue, the process will be a little more complex. Say you’ve done the work, you’re set on all of the legal aspects. You’ve got your safety wings and you’re ready to jump in the deep end!
Just keep SWIMMING…just keep swimming
You’ve jumped in! Go you! That is something to be truly proud of, starting a business and working for yourself is a huge leap, and a wonderful step for yourself. You have momentum, and a very optimistic attitude, because..Who can stop you when you have all the knowledge?! So you’re in the deep end, you’re swimming along, and you’re getting lead after lead. Things are great!
You’ve asnwered all the leads, you’ve had some meetings, and you’ve booked a few clients. You’re swimming laps around and feeling great! Months go by, and your leads are ghosting you, or your bookings may have drifted off. Maybe you haven’t even been able to land a solid lead since you’ve started, and you’re realize, your floaties in the deep end, may not be enough.
I thought I had it All
That was me… I had the passion; I was in love with the idea of offering a place for 2 individuals in love to join their lives together. I got my bachelors in Business Management, I am a creative individual, and I felt the urge to do something that could help others set their love in stone. So we sold our house, moved to some land, and spent our savings on a wedding venue. Crazy, I know. But I had those water wings, and I was ready to jump in! Well…. I thought so.
We created a beautiful outdoor wedding venue, with lots of natural beauty. We knew we needed advertising, and jumped in full force with the Knot and Wedding wire. The promises we were made it seem we would have booking after booking, and so many leads we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. I was beaming! The first month we had an influx of leads, and felt great! Then month after month leads flowed in, but not as many as we were told. And none, I’m telling you NONE, of the leads even wanted to follow through with an in person tour. ! Year later, and our entire advertising budget spent, we had nothing. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t to Bash wedding wire, or the knot, people seem to do well on it, and they are a huge wedding go to. But, as a brand-new venue, with NO weddings done before, it wasn’t the spot to go.
1 year passed, and then 2…. And we had nothing to show from it…We chocked it up to lesson learned but were struggling to figure out advertising on our own. We tried Facebook ads before, and got nothing, we struggle to figure out how to get our Instagram posts seen. We had one wedding under our belt, and one more booked, and very little leads coming our way. I was devastated, and my husband was ready to throw in the towel.
I was thrown a Life Preserver
I prayed on it, A LOT. Then scrolling Facebook on our wedding side, we came across an ad. Book More Brides, a business owned by Kate and Nick Storey. So, I did what anyone would do, I googled if it was legit, or a scam. I found their podcast on Spotify, and began listening. Kate was very charismatic, knowledgeable, and had a way with words. I kept getting e-mails from them, about how they could help turn around our wedding business. We were hooked, my husband and I decided to take the next step and meet with Nick.
Immediately we felt safe, and the spark lit again. We found a way to get back afloat, and the deep end didn’t seem so scary anymore! They set us up with the tools to read through on our own and help guide us to building a better business to book more brides. On top of that, they had weekly calls set up to help you if you were stuck, lost, or maybe unsure of yourself. Kate, Nick, and their team were very knowledgeable as well as understanding and worked with us at our pace. Not once did I even imagine the amount of knowledge I still needed to learn in owning a venue. It takes time and effort, and you may be like “well that doesn’t seem like something I need.” Trust me! You do. Trust the process. We aren’t 100% as a business yet, Frog Hollow is still a work in progress. But I’m trusting the process and giving it my all. I can truly say though, that without Kate and Nick, we would still be drowning. I highly recommend checking Book More Brides out of you're struggling to keep afloat.
