It’s officially been 14 years since we first opened my wedding planning business’s doors. And since then, we’ve created a recognizable (and reputable) brand, built a small but mighty team, and served over 1000 couples! I never say this to brag but rather to show you that with persistence, you can also grow your wedding business to the level of success you want.

And although it’s easy to look at our Blush today and think it’s been all smooth sailing since our first days, I assure you, that is far from the case. Back in 2007, I took a leap of faith to start my own wedding planning business because I was starting a family and I knew I wanted to have more freedom in my schedule to spend time with them. Well, the first few years did not go the way I imagined. We struggled financially because I was clueless when it came to budgeting, clients signed with us inconsistently, and I had no idea how to fulfill my role as a CEO.

In short, I made all the mistakes already. And now, I am passionate about teaching the next generation of CEOs (perhaps like yourself!) how to fast-track their business growth without taking all the detours I took. And that’s why today, I wanted to cover the top three things that helped me grow my wedding planning business quickly. And as a quick preface: these are three tips that may feel impossible right at this moment, especially if you’re just a few years into growing your business. But I promise the return on investment will pay off.

1: Outsourcing

First, let’s tackle the question: what is outsourcing? Outsourcing is when you contract a professional outside of your internal team to take care of tasks for your business. Usually, business owners outsource tasks that don’t necessarily require a person to be in the office or on-call every day. For example, you can outsource an accountant to help you with your taxes. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t outsource for long-term, everyday tasks either!

Take this coaching business for example. I’m quite open and honest that I outsource all of my marketing content, which means I have a team that creates all my social media captions, newsletter content, and podcast show notes. However, I didn’t hire just anyone to create all this content. I hired a team that knows my brand and my voice, so they know how to convey all the information that I want to teach my ideal audience.

So, the important takeaway from this: if you’re thinking about outsourcing a job that will have direct content with your ideal clients, make sure you hire a professional or a team who takes the time to get to know your brand message and personality. Not only will it create a seamless experience for your followers, readers, and clients because it will feel like you’re the one talking to them, but it will also make your job a lot easier because you won’t have to micromanage or worry about them not nailing down your message.

If you’re wondering if outsourcing will lead to feeling detached from your audience, I promise you it won’t! If anything, you make even more time to connect with your audience, and you’ll have more capacity to listen to the type of content they resonate with the most. That way, you can focus on creating and implementing the content your audience wants, which will help you grow and scale your wedding planning business.

With my coaching business, I’m still the one to produce the ideas and the details, but my brilliant marketing team is the one who transforms all my ideas into a cohesive message. By outsourcing, I can keep my focus on the bigger picture and focus on growth and scale.

2: Hiring immediately

I know hiring can often feel intimidating, especially if you’re just a few years into your business. However, hiring was one of the best things I did to grow my Blush, my wedding planning business. Why? It leaves you more time to focus on (say it with me) growing and scaling your small business!

I always say this, but I’ll say it again. We entrepreneurs are self-starters, go-getters, and resilient. But we can also be stubborn because we want to be able to do everything ourselves. Here’s the hard truth, though: we can’t do everything ourselves. And if we’re being truly honest with ourselves, I know you don’t want to do everything yourself either! It’s natural to have tasks you love to do, and tasks that take all the energy out of you.

For example, when it comes to Blush, I love mentoring our team of planners to serve our couples with excellence! But I loathe creating SOPs and anything having to do with data entry. So, instead of dragging my feet through the mud trying to get SOPs, anything that requires data entry, or getting our books reconciled every month done, I hired a bookkeeper and those who can help me out with other pain points of mine! That allowed me to focus on what I love to do and what I know I’m good at. Plus, it helped free up my schedule to think about more ways to expand our wedding planning business.

Another benefit of hiring quickly for your small business is that you can take on more challenging projects and serve more high-quality clients. By having more experts on your team, you can get a range of ideas and perspectives, which can help you stay ahead of the competition in your market. And with the right team, you can work together to tackle challenges more efficiently and easier! The result? Fast-tracked growth.

3: Using “we” statements instead of “I” statements

This last tip I have for fast-tracking your wedding business’s growth is to use “we” statements rather than “I” statements. I firmly believe this is the most underrated yet one of the easiest and most effective ways to propel any business forward. Using “we” statements has a couple of benefits.

The first is that my clients and vendors will understand that my team is just as capable as I am to handle their wedding or event. Too often, clients and vendors will assume the CEO knows best, but as we talked about in tip two, we can’t possibly know everything! Teamwork is the key to providing a white-glove, 5-star client experience. Including your team doesn’t just stop at letting them handle clients, though. I also bring my team at Blush to networking events, talk to clients one-on-one, encourage them to show up on our social media, and more. That way, they’re very involved in the process and they can feel confident going into any interaction with our business.

The second benefit is that it creates a great work environment! While this may not fast-track your wedding business’s growth as tangibly as the other tips, minimizing employee turnover is so important. (That’s also where hiring the right team members comes into play.)

Bonus tip: Investing in courses and templates.

Google, free blogs, business podcasts, and newsletters are great. But they only give you one piece of the puzzle. When it comes to your business, you’ll eventually need to have all the pieces of the puzzle in one spot so you can best know how to move forward in your business. And the best way to get those personalized ideas? Through courses and templates!

Courses and templates are great because an expert has already compiled all the information you need to know about one topic. With a course or with a template, you’ll have all the knowledge you need and none of the fluff you don’t, so you can create long-term solutions for your business’s needs.

Final thoughts

I hope that this made you feel empowered to make a few small yet impactful changes in your business to grow and scale! And as I said at the beginning, I know that these investments can feel nearly impossible. But I assure you that when you can work up the courage to take that next step, you will see a return on your investment!
Not confident to do it alone? Consider checking out my CEO Learning Hub, where I house all my templates, courses, and coaching services! This is your chance to get the professional guidance you may find yourself needing! Click here to access all those resources and watch your business flourish.