“You need to make sure that you understand your profit. If you are not profitable, then it doesn’t really matter what your sales are.”

Episode 153

Raise your hand if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Wow. It feels like we are selling so much. We actually have a great amount of leads coming in. I feel like we’re closing a lot of business, but somehow there never seems to be enough money in the bank to make payroll, pay bills or even pay myself!”

I know that every single person reading this has had this realization at least once.

It’s seemingly part of being an entrepreneur.

But all hope is not lost fellow wedding pros!

There are ways to make sure that what you’re selling is actually making you money.

I have created a free downloadable budget worksheet to help you find your accurate billable hourly rate so you can have confidence in what the cost of your package price is for any wedding industry business.

Follow along with these next steps and realize that time is your most valuable currency and it is the only non-renewable resource that you have.

Lets price your wedding packages for PROFIT friends!

Highlights:

• This is a workshop style episode of the Wedding Pro CEO Podcast
• Download the FREE Budget Planner Template and follow along

Step 1: Current package prices

The first thing that I want you to do is to put the dollar amount that you currently charge for each of your packages.

Now, from there, I want you to think about all of the expenses that you have, if you book that package. (We’re not talking about expenses like your CRM, VA or Advertising, these expenses occur regardless if you book a client.)

What should be recorded here are the expenses that you only pay if you book one of your packages.

Step 2: The event lead/manager

“You need to get your labor and all of your costs to be no higher than 50% of the total amount of that package.”

Enter how much you pay your lead person. The person that takes charge and has responsibility over the event, note that cost.

If you’re a photographer, it’s gonna be your lead photographer.

If you’re a wedding planner, your lead planner.

If you’re a DJ, it’s gonna be your lead DJ.

Whatever that looks like for your business, whoever you’re paying to lead that individual event, add it as an expense.

Step 3: Deliverables for a given package

“Deliverables. Anything you mail or hand deliver to a client, those are a cost to your business, an expense to account for.”

Any deliverables that you have for that package are really important to remember to include as an expense.

If you’re a photographer and you need to deliver a gallery for your clients, and you have to pay your online system for each gallery that you upload, you’re going to put that here.

If you give a gift to every single client that books you, you’re going to put that here.

Anything that you’re going to deliver to a client.

Step 4: Additional labor and other expenses

“Time is your most valuable currency. It’s the only non-renewable resource that you have.“

Add any assistance that you have, any additional labor that you need to produce that event.

Now, if there’s anything that you have special that I didn’t include here, then I want you to absolutely add that in as well.

For the truest cost to produce that package, make sure every one of your expenses is included here for anything that you have to pay each time you book an event.

Step 5: Time study and crunch the numbers

“How many hours are you spending on that service? This is really, really important because you want to make sure that each of your packages is priced according to the amount of time that you put into that package.”

Next, on top of each of your package prices, I want you to write down how many hours you work on each of those packages. (So before they signed their contract, that was sales, DO NOT count that.)

When you’re doing a time study, I want you to think about and write down (total hours) from the time they signed their contract until you’re completely done working with them.

How many hours are you spending on that (package) service?

There’s a line for this information on the worksheet.

Include the number of hours that you work on each of your packages.

Have an exact amount of hours as possible or use the industry standard amount included. Using a time tracking app is recommended because we can tend to under or overestimate our time involved.

Step 6: Finding your billable hourly rate

Why is it important to know how many hours we are logging per package? Well, it’s going to give us a couple of pieces of information; it’s going to give you your billable hourly rate. It’s really important for you to know this number because that will be your hourly sales rate.

Are you really making $80 an hour, or is it only $40 an hour? After this worksheet you will know.

Another reason this is really important is that you want to make sure that each of your packages is priced according to the amount of time that you put into that package.

Wouldn’t you like to make sure you are paying yourself the same hourly rate producing an event that takes 20 hours when you are also producing the event that takes 100 hours?

When you listen to this weeks episode I have a great example of planners actually paying themselves less for a higher priced package because they do not know there numbers and have a skewed billable hourly rate.

Made it all the way down here and did not download the Budget Template? Click HERE to grab your worksheet now!!!

Hard work pays off

This is what your time is worth!!

With this worksheet completed you now know, this is how much I’m going to sell this package at.

Why is that important?

Because now, you know your numbers, and now you will have so much more confidence and so much more empowerment to go after what you really, really are worth!

Let me know what questions you have.

DM me on Instagram or in the Wedding Pro CEO Facebook Community

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