The Wedding Pro CEO Podcast: Episode 201 With Brandee Gaar

Hey there, CEOs. Welcome to the Wedding Pro CEO Podcast. I’m your host, Brandee Gaar, and my mission every single week with this podcast is to help you, the wedding industry business owner, to build a profitable wedding business that you actually love.

On today’s show, we are here in the middle of a big launch that we have for the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator. We’ve been talking about it all month long. You’ve heard from some of my past students, you heard me talking about it on social media. We’re about three days before the end of this launch, and what that means is that at the end of this launch, which closes on Friday, September 1st at 11:59 PM. The price of the Accelerator is going up. Fairly significantly. The reason for that is because we have so many changes coming to the Accelerator this fall. I’m so excited about it. I wanna talk about that a little bit more in this show because the Accelerator is growing, like it’s growing rapidly, and I want to make sure to be here for this movement, like all of the students that are joining inside the Accelerator.

I wanna be here to support you. I wanna be here to help you as you build these profitable wedding businesses and you have this incredible transformation. I’ve been getting so many questions as we’ve been building all this hype around the Accelerator. I’ve been getting questions in my DM’s and in my email and in my community on Facebook about what exactly is the Accelerator, why you should join now versus just anytime because doors are really always open. You can join anytime.

So why you should join now and what you’re getting when you get inside the Accelerator. So I’ve gotten lots of questions and I just thought now’s a good time to just drop a podcast episode to say, Hey, let’s take a look at what actually the Accelerator is, how it can transform your business, and what you get when you get inside the Accelerator.

So we’re just breaking it all down in this episode! Let’s get into it!

Why should I join the Accelerator now if joining is available anytime?

So the first thing that I wanna touch on is that I’ve had a couple people ask me, why should I join now? I thought that you could really join the Accelerator anytime of the year. That’s a hundred percent true. You can join the Accelerator anytime. Every single month we have wedding pros join the Accelerator, which is so exciting. But I kind of think about it like the first day of school, right? Like school starts for most people in August or September, and it’s just a time when everyone is starting fresh, right? You can join school anytime.

There’s always new kids that are coming, but the beginning of the school year is that time when you jump in and everybody’s starting at the same time and it’s really exciting ’cause you like get a new outfit or you get school supplies and this case you’re getting new tools, resources, community and friends to help you build your profitable business. But that’s really the purpose of it, gathering a whole group of wedding pros that are gonna start at the same time, so you can join anytime. But here during this launch, up until September 1st at midnight, you can actually join at the old pricing. So you can go on my website right now and you can join at the old pricing, but you’re gonna get all of the new updates that are coming this fall because you’ll be part of the program as we’re updating it, which honestly is like the coolest part of joining right now. It happens to be that you’re gonna get both old pricing, but all the new upgrades. So that’s really the first thing that I wanna talk about.

“I’m here to support your incredible transformation in the wedding industry, making sure you build profitable businesses with the help of the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator.”

Brandee Gaar

What is the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator?

If anybody’s listening and you’re kinda like, what even is the Accelerator Brandee? Like, you’ve lost me already. I don’t even know what the Accelerator is.

Let’s take a step back for a second. Okay? So, The Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator is my signature program that teaches service-based wedding business owners how to build a profitable wedding
business without the overwhelm. I also teach you how to pay yourself in this program, which is so so important. But more than that, this is a six module framework teaching you all about time management, marketing, sales, team building, finance and profit. How to think like a CEO and how to manage your time like a CEO. The transformation from this program is really a business that you’ve dreamed of from the beginning, right?

What wedding business do you want to have?

Like none of us built our business and said, “oh my gosh, I hope I can have a business that I work 24/7 and I have constant anxiety and that I never pay a dime from” right? Like no one says that. What we say is, “I want a business that gives me the freedom to be with my family, to be with my kids, to spend time with my spouse. Or to hang out with my friends, that pays me a reasonable full-time salary,” right? Like these are the things that we want from our business, but most of us haven’t created that.

We’ve actually created this like beast monster that has taken over our lives. And so I am here, I am creating this movement in our wedding industry that says, enough is enough. I want to teach you how to build the back end of your business strong enough so that you can get out of the day-to-day so that you are not constantly having to show your face in your business. That you can build that team, that can really be the one that runs the day-to-day so that you can cast vision and you can continue thinking about growth, but that you can still take a full-time salary from that business. And that’s a really
difficult thing to do.

It’s funny because the program as it stands right now has evolved over the last two years. So back in 2020 and 2021, I was doing a significant amount of one-on-one coaching like I was doing A LOT, which I love one-on-one coaching! It’s one of my favorite things to do because you get to get in depth with, a CEO and really like take apart their business and build it back together even stronger, right? So one-on-one coaching is so much fun and I offer it in 90 day increments. So I work together with a wedding pro for 90 days, and at the time I would work with them for 90 days and we would have so much progress, right? And then at the end of that 90 days, the question I kept getting was, okay, so now what?

How do we keep working with you? I don’t wanna just stop here. Like, I want to keep having, additional ways to learn and additional ways to grow my business. And at the time I didn’t have anything. I was kinda like, I don’t know, like this is it, this is what I offer.

Evolution of the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator

We’re celebrating a two year anniversary of the Accelerator. I created, at the time what was called the Wedding Pro CEO Mastermind a live group coaching/membership for wedding pros and every single month I would do one call where I would go live and I would teach on a subject, right? So everything was completely taught live. And then I would do an additional call that month where I would just do an open Q and A and it was awesome. Like I loved it so much because it was really a way for people to either do one-on-one coaching and then join the membership, or just join the membership.

For those OG members that started back with me in August of 2021, it was awesome because we kinda like had a starting point and then every month we would do a new topic based on what kind of was trending at the time. The challenge came when new members would join at random times throughout the year, and there really was no starting point, if you joined the program. You were like desperate for help to figure out your financials, but we were teaching on marketing. Then it was very challenging for you because you were like, tyranny of the urgent is I need to understand what my financials are but we weren’t teaching about that at the time. So you’d almost have to like wait until that topic came back again.

And so we taught it live really for 18 months because right around the one year mark of it, I started to realize I need a starting point for new CEOs that came into the program. I want ’em to be able to start wherever they need the most help right now, and then still be able to join the live coaching calls. Still be able to join the Q and A. So I went back through all of the curriculum that we’d taught for a year, and I also polled the students that were inside it, the students that were having these amazing successes, and came up with that six pillar framework, which is really focused on the six pillars of building your profitable business that pays you and gives you that time freedom.

The 6 pillars of the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator

Mindset Shift

So we came up with those six pillars, which are the mindset of a CEO, so really understanding what needs to change in your mindset, what do you need to reframe in your brain to really step out of the day to day, because that is a massive mindset shift to go from being the one serving every day to being the one in the background that’s now mentoring and coaching a team and doing the vision casting instead of the everyday work.

Know your numbers

The next one is profit and financials, which should be no surprise if you listen to this podcast that it’s like my favorite thing to talk about is numbers, financials, profit, right? Paying yourself a salary.

Time management

We also talk about time management. Once you start stepping into that role of CEO, you start stepping back from the daily grind. You all of a sudden have some white space on your calendar. Which you’re likely not used to, and now all of a sudden you’re like, what do I do with this time? I don’t know. I feel almost like I’m not doing anything to grow my business.

Sales

We talk about sales, how to close a sale, how to generate more leads, how to make sure that you’re closing that higher ticket sale. We wanna make sure that you are profitable in all your packages, but we also wanna understand how to sell them, right? It’s so so important to keep that constant flow of leads coming through.

Marketing

We talk about marketing. It goes so far beyond social media. So we talk about your website, what should be on it? Things that I see on websites all the time that you absolutely need to take off. We talk about exactly how to navigate your website, what should be on your contact us form, how to set up a great social media profile, how to show up in all the places, how to network, all the things that go into marketing, right?

Team building strategically

The last thing that we talk about is how to grow your All-Star team not just how to hire a team member, but how to build your team strategically, because remember, in this course, what I want your transformation to be is that you are stepping back from the day to day. You’re no longer involved constantly in the day-to-day, but you’re building a team that can really handle those things like, sales, marketing, even training your new team members, client communication, like it’s not just about hiring a team, it’s about hiring a strategic team so that you start to step away from the day-to-day and your role then becomes mentoring. Coaching this team, growing the team vision, casting additional revenue streams because there’s no way if you’re in the day-to-day, every single day, and you’re so bogged down with the details, you can’t see past the details to even fathom the growth that could happen. And if your business isn’t growing, it’s moving backwards, right?

So we want to make sure that you’re able to build this seven figure business because you are able to create additional revenue streams in your business, whether that’s opening another market, starting to offer rentals, becoming a coach or an educator, speaker, whatever that looks like for you, I want you to be able to dream those things because you now have a team that’s handling the day-to-day.

So we really talk a lot about building your strategic team.

So that’s what I did. I built this course, right? I took all the curriculum we had taught over the last year, I polled our students and we narrowed it down to these six core pillars. Now I’m a business owner just like you guys are. So I still run a very successful wedding planning business in Orlando, Florida. I have a team that I have to be responsible for. I have clients I have to be responsible for. I have a family. I have ministry obligations, like I’m a busy girl, so I know, that if I were to go and start making one or two hour videos about how to do these things inside your business, you’d be like, no girlfriend, I don’t have time for this. Like, I’m a busy business owner, right?

How does the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator work?

So when I started building out the prerecorded version of the Accelerator, I really wanted to make sure that when you jumped inside the course, it felt very manageable. You could go to whichever of those six modules you felt was most urgent for you to get that first win in your business. You don’t have to start from the beginning, you can start anywhere in those six modules, but within the six modules there’s bite-size lessons, and inside each lesson is not only a written version of what I’m talking about, there’s also a video where you can see me either doing what I’m showing you how to do or talking directly to you.

So you can read it, you can listen to it, or you can watch it. And these videos are bite size. Very few of them are over 30 minutes, and most of them are like 10 to 12 minutes. The goal with each lesson inside the modules is to really give you one actionable thing that you can do from that lesson. So if you only have 15, 20, 30 minutes in your day, you can watch one lesson and implement it immediately, right? Because again, I’m not trying to overwhelm you here. Like this should be easy. This should be something that compliments your business and helps you to grow your business. But I know the only way you’re gonna do that as if it’s manageable and you can actually fit it into your schedule, right?

If you pop over to watch this podcast on my YouTube channel, I’m actually showing you what the backend looks like, so I’m showing you, once you join as a student exactly what it looks like inside the Accelerator, so you can see how the modules are laid out. You can see the videos, you can see exactly how I write out the entire outline of what I’m talking about, and then also any templates any copy, any downloads, anything that I am talking about as well, I give to you inside the Accelerator.

And it’s linked right there inside that lesson. So you don’t have to go find it in some Google Drive folder. You can link it right there and you can make it your own and you can create right there. Like anything that I have that I talk about and that I have a template for you are getting it right inside the Accelerator. So I love this piece of the program and I love being able to hear the CEOs inside the group that are like, I watched this lesson and I implemented it and I’m already killing that. I’ve already gotten a client to sign at a higher ticket. I’ve already closed three more weddings. Like whatever it is. I love getting to see that they can go start that program wherever they wanna start.

Changing the name to the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator

Once I launched the course, I did change the name from the Wedding Pro CEO Mastermind to the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator and why? I feel like the Accelerator was a better name for what it was, it’s not a bunch of people coming in and necessarily kind of like crowdsourcing an idea, you actually are accelerating your business because you’re coming in, you’re getting a step by step course. Deep dive. This is not surface level like I’m deep diving into these topics with you, and I’m showing you step by step exactly what to do to accelerate the growth of your business. So that is how the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator was born.

Okay, so we added the course back at the beginning of this year, and what was really really important to me was that I didn’t just create this course and then say, okay, well now I’ve created a course, so I don’t need to teach live every single month. Not at all. I thrive in live teaching, like if you’ve ever been part of one of my webinars or you’ve seen me teaching live, I love it because the energy is AMAZING. You just can’t get that same kind of energy anywhere else, and you can answer questions in real time. Now the Accelerator is the course that you get lifetime access to.

Live coaching calls monthly

We also have the live coaching calls every single month, so twice a month we have live coaching calls. They’re about 90 minutes, and I spend about 20 minutes of the beginning of this call talking about a topic that is trending now. So either that it’s summer and sales are down, or that it’s almost engagement season, and how to prepare for it. Or hey, it’s time to start making our budgets. Let’s look at how we’re gonna make those budgets for next year.

There’s so many different topics. We bring in experts to talk about SEO or how to add corporate events to your business or how to create great website copy. So there’s always a live teaching component, for a bit of the time on these calls. Which I love so much because we did that back in the OG style of it and I didn’t wanna get rid of it because you guys know our industry is constantly changing.

Y’all have we had a normal year since 2019? No. So it’s really important to me that I don’t just create this course and go, okay, this’ll work forever. No, I want to be able to also walk alongside you and say, here’s what’s happening now. Here’s what I’m seeing in my business. Here’s what I’m seeing across the board when I speak with hundreds of wedding pros of what’s going on in our industry or here’s a trending topic in the news that’s affecting us right now. So we spend the first 20 to 30 minutes talking about that.

Q&A segment

Then I open it up for question and answer. And this can be literally anything. It doesn’t have to be about the topic we’re talking about right now at all. It can be about something you learned in the Accelerator and you’re not sure how to apply it, it can be that you don’t understand the financial spreadsheet that you did and you wanna make sure you did it right. So I’ll ask you to share your screen and it’s such a great exercise, like right there with you, I’ll walk through your financial spreadsheet, ask you how you got these numbers, help you to punch holes in it, your sales process. If you’re like my sales process feels like it’s off, I’m not really sure, we’ll walk through it together right there.

It’s such a great way for everybody to kinda watch how someone else is working through something in their own business because they may have the same question or they might have that same question come up in a couple of months and they’re now gonna know how to handle it. So we have those Q&A calls. And then we also have weekly co-working sessions. The Accelerator to me is really, this amazing combination of a course and a group coaching program, like a live group coaching program and a membership all in one. And I, I feel like there really isn’t anything else in our industry like it because there’s so much accountability, there’s so much community.

There’s step-by-step course, there’s a live coaching, there’s mentoring, there’s walking alongside you and it really takes all of that to be able to have the transformation that we’re expecting from this program. And I’ve seen countless students have this transformation where they go from this overwhelmed, just a completely lost, overworked CEO thinking, there’s no way that they can get out of what they’ve created. And so now they come in and they do have this transformation because we don’t just have the course we have these other components that are holding you accountable to doing the work that are helping you to figure out how to implement it into your own business. And I love that about this program. I love what this program has evolved into and I’m so excited for what’s to come.

Price increase coming soon

So in the beginning of the episode, I mentioned that we’re raising the price of the Accelerator on September 1st at midnight, right? So you have a few more days to get in at the price that it has been for the past two years. The reason that we’re raising the price is ’cause we’re making some incredible updates this fall, and I love that this group of CEOs right now is not only going to be able to get in at the old pricing, but you’re actually going to get all of these updates because when you join the Accelerator, you get lifetime access to the course, but you also get six months inside the live coaching, right? So six months you’re in there, you get the live coaching calls, you get the expert calls, you get the co-working sessions, all the things right? And so you’re gonna get all of these updates that we’re making even though you’re paying the old price. So the next time we launch the Accelerator, the price is going up quite significantly because we have so many new things that are coming this fall.

Updates coming

I wanna give you kind of a little hint as to what’s to come this fall. The first thing I wanna tell you is that we are doing lots of curriculum updates. So as we’ve worked through the curriculum, I love when I have a student that’s like, oh, I really wish I could see how you set up a flow desk or you set up a freebie form, like how do you do that? And I’ll show them live, but we’re gonna be recording all of those kind of things, like, how to set up your acuity calendar.

A lot of tech updates of exactly how step-by-step you can watch my screen of how to do something. We’re also adding in, how to use A.I. for your website, how to use it for your social captions, your sales emails and things like that. So that’s super, super exciting and that’s all coming this fall!

3 new coaches

But we’re also adding three new coaches into the accelerator program. And I don’t know if I can overstate how excited I am about this.

Like I’m so incredibly. Just overwhelmed and excited. I don’t even know what all the words are, because these coaches are joining the program and in addition to me, you’re now gonna be getting three more experts to help you in growing and scaling your business. So let’s talk about that for a second. So the first coach that’s joining me is actually one of my OG students, Katy Padilla!

Katy Padilla

So Katy Padilla, you guys have heard her here on the podcast. Several times she’s been on episode 76 and she’s also been on episode 127. She was very new and she had won a one-on-one coaching call with me back on the podcast in episode 76. A year later I interviewed her on episode 127 and we shared all about this massive transformation that she had since joining the Accelerator and really learning how to step into that role as CEO in her business and understand where her profit was coming from. Understanding which of the things she was doing were making a profit. Which of the things weren’t to do more of the things that were do less of the things that weren’t. Right? That was even a year ago. And so now Katy runs a amazing planning company in San Antonio and Austin, Texas and she does well over half a million dollars in revenue and she takes less weddings than she ever has in her business.

She’s always giving advice and helping and being another sounding board, but now we’re making it officially official that she’ll be helping me to really provide feedback and guidance to the CEOs inside the Accelerator. And this is massively important to me, you guys. I want somebody that’s come up through the program that understands the way I teach, that understands exactly what it is that you need to do to build this incredible business for yourself.

She’s always giving advice and helping and being another sounding board, but now we’re making it officially official that she’ll be helping me to really provide feedback and guidance to the CEOs inside the Accelerator. And this is massively important to me, you guys. I want somebody that’s come up through the program that understands the way I teach, that understands exactly what it is that you need to do to build this incredible business for yourself.

Danielle Hayden

The next person that we’re adding is Danielle Hayden. Danielle is the owner of Kickstart Accounting. Kickstart Accounting is a huge partner for the Wedding Pro CEO summit. They have been a partner of ours for a long time. They’ve also been my personal bookkeeper for all of our businesses. I’m really, really excited that Danielle is gonna be coming in and she’s gonna be doing quarterly coaching calls with our students to really help you with your bookkeeping. Like what tax laws are coming up, any new filings you need to know about, your QuickBooks or how you’re handling your taxes, or how you’re handling your accounting, things like that. She’s gonna be there to be that resource because so often in the group or in any of my programs, I’ll say, okay, here’s what you need to do, but I want you to run that by a bookkeeper for your state or a CPA for your state. And so Kickstart Accounting really works with all of the US and they only specifically work with small businesses just like you and I.

And so what makes that unique is that they’re not giving you these strategies that only work for giant corporations. They’re helping you to really think like a CEO from a small business perspective, and so I love that so much about them. I’m super, super excited that she’s gonna be joining the coaching team, so she’s gonna have regular calls inside the program that you can benefit from. You can join those and ask any of those kind of looming questions you’ve been wanting to ask a bookkeeper or CPA. Super excited about that. That’s coming this fall.

Alison Watkins

And then the last person that we’re adding to the coaching team. She’s been my right hand for like 16 years in my business. She’s my director of operations for Blush. She’s also been super integral. If you’re a student of any of my programs, you’ve likely interacted with Alison Watkins. She is all things to my business backend, like she handles all my systems, all my integrations, all the operations of our business. She is an invaluable resource to the CEOs inside this program. So she’s gonna be really helping with tech automations systems, those kind of questions that you may have really quick, that you just need help getting something set up. She’s gonna be available to help with that.

The best coaches in the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator

So now having the four of us kinda round out this coaching team. I’m here to help you really step into that role of CEO and walk you through those six pillars. Katy’s gonna come in and help support me on that. Danielle is really gonna be talking a lot about financial tax laws, bookkeeping, things like that. And Alison’s gonna be there for that tech side and that automation side. With the four of us, you are gonna be able to take your business to a level that you would just not have been able to do on your own. It’s very, very difficult to do on your own. I did it. I made all the mistakes. Now I’m teaching you how to do it so that you don’t have to make all those mistakes. So I’m super, super excited about what’s to come for this fall.

The elephant in the room: money and time

Okay. I’ve heard it enough times, so I wanna address the elephant in the room. One is money and two is time, right? That’s what everyone says when they’re like, I don’t know if I can join right now, because either money or time. So let’s address both of those really quick.

Money

The first one is money, because I think that’s the easiest. You can always make more money. Always. Literally, tomorrow, today, every single minute you can make more money. I don’t wanna trivialize that. I’m fully aware that it is difficult to build your business. It’s difficult to get leads. I fully understand that. But you as a business owner can always make more money, okay? And the price of the Accelerator for most wedding pros who join it is the cost of one wedding, one of your most basic package. The cost of one wedding to be able to build all of this profit, to start paying yourself from your business to start building your team. That’s it. That’s all it is, and you really have to think about that as an investment. An investment grows, right? An investment grows, an expense does not grow. This is not an expense. It is an investment in building more profit into your business so that you can start paying yourself. So money is always the easy one. If you tell me it’s because you don’t have enough money, I’m like, okay, that’s fine. I’m not even gonna argue that one with you because you have to think about it as an investment in your future.

Time

The second one is time and time is harder because time is a non-renewable resource, right? Like we all get the same amount of time. And time is difficult, especially if you’re sitting here like, girlfriend, I am in busy season right now and I do not have time to sit here and watch all these courses, but I want you to remember what Julie Rupert said back on episode 198, which is that she joined at the absolute height of her busy season.

She was busier than she’s ever been in her entire career and her entire business, and she was able to set aside one hour a week. To invest in herself and to make herself a priority. And now it’s not even been nine months since she joined the Accelerator and she’s enjoying a two week vacation with her daughter with no computer. Her team, who she didn’t have when she joined the Accelerator is running her business. And that’s fully possible for you, but you can’t make time, a reason not to join because here’s the thing, we all make time for the things that are a priority in our life. Look at all the things you spend time on every single day. I would venture to bet there’s an hour that you spend wasting on something else, even just crying in your bathtub because you’re like, this business is gonna consume my entire life and I want you to spend that hour instead, in investing in this program because it will change your business. It will change your business.

Ready to join the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator??

Okay, so if you are here and you’re like, okay, that’s it, I’m ready. Like I’m ready to join the CEOs that want more profit and less overwhelm like I’m in. You’ve heard me Brandee, like you know the walk that I’m walking. I want in. Then I want you to head over to BrandeeGaar.com/acceleratorlive, okay? We also included a link to it below in the show notes. It shows you a little bit more about what the modules are that you’re gonna learn inside there, how the program works. We also have a list of frequently asked questions that you can take a look at, and if you still have questions after that, you can absolutely DM me on Instagram. I’m @BrandeeGaar. But here’s the thing I want you guys to know. This is something that won’t happen again. Like I will not ever be offering the Accelerator at its current price. After September 1st at midnight the price goes up.

We start making all those upgrades to the Accelerator. But you can join right now this week for the old price, but get all of the upgrades that are coming this fall, you get all of them. Okay? And that is something no other group of CEOs will be able to get. We’re always going to offer it at this new price. And you guys, we are increasing the price significantly because paying for additional coaches and curriculum upgrades and all these new videos and things like that takes money. We’re gonna be spending a lot more money. And so of course, the price of the course has to go up with that value, right? And so I want to make sure that you get in before September 1st at midnight, and you head over to BrandeeGaar.com/acceleratorlive to join us. I cannot wait to see you inside the program. I get so jazzed. I know that Katy, Danielle, Alison, and all the other CEOs are gonna be standing there with open arms ready to welcome you and help you to really build this profitable business that you’ve always dreamed of. You guys that’ll do it for this episode of The Wedding Pro CEO Podcast. I hope that you can hear in my voice every single week when I show up here how passionate I am about creating this movement of wedding pros that want more I. That want more from our businesses, that want to start paying ourselves, that want to have less anxiety, less overwhelm, less burnout, and build the business that you’ve always dreamed of.

Whether you join my community or listen to this show every single week, or you’re gonna be one of the new students to join us in the wedding Pro CEO Accelerator, I just wanna say make a move. Make a move in your business. Don’t just sit still and do the same old, same old. Start one step today. Do one thing today to grow your business, because I promise you it will pay off. And I’m so excited that you’ve decided to join me for this journey. So thank you guys so much. I will see you next time.

Watch the full episode on Youtube!

Ready to Build Your Profitable Business?

Join the Wedding Pro CEO Accelerator: A 6-month program for established wedding pros who are ready to ditch the overwhelm, create consistent profit, build their dream team and confidently grow their revenue to $100k/year and beyond.