Becoming a “solopreneur” is not a simple task, and it’s a huge learning curve becoming an executive. Becoming a six-figure business with a small team, or even having multiple six-figure businesses with a large team? Even though that’s a goal for many of us wedding educators, planners, and professionals, there’s a lot that goes into creating and maintaining a business. So the idea almost makes you want to say, “forget about it!”

But truthfully, many of us become entrepreneurs to make enough income for ourselves to live a life of freedom while still making a positive impact on our clients. This means you’ll most likely need to expand your team on your entrepreneurial journey.

Now, I won’t sugarcoat it: it took some years of trial and error and learning from my mistakes to learn to successfully run multiple six-figure businesses with a medium-sized team. Because I already made all the mistakes, I wanted to share the most significant pillars that helped me go from solopreneur to a six-figure wedding business with a small team to running multiple six-figure wedding and coaching businesses with a larger team. With these three wedding business pillars, you can scale your company without (too many) growing pains!

Pillar 1: Strategic Delegation

“No one can do it as well as I can” is the biggest lie we tell ourselves as entrepreneurs. And honestly, if you’ve told yourself this, it’s not your fault! We’re trained to delegate wherever and whenever we can in our business. But this leads to a trap of thinking we’re the only ones who can do tasks in our businesses, which leads to not being able to find someone who can match our expectations.

Instead, reframe this thought by not thinking of your job as purely the delegator, but a strategic delegator. (Yes, there’s a difference!)

Strategic delegation means looking for someone who has the qualities you’re lacking. They can fill in the gaps where you’re not knowledgeable or passionate about and take over those duties in your business for you. By doing this, you’ll get your business’s momentum moving forward because you’re adding true value to the team.

When hiring, consider these questions:

1. What tasks are you spending the most time on?
2. What do you put off until you have nothing left on your list?
3. What do you dread doing, or what tasks drain your joy?

As an example, I hire people on my team who provide the qualities I lack, which are creating SOPs, CRMs, and writing a training manual. That means my priority is finding team members who love data and creating procedures because they can add value to my team that I can’t bring myself. On the other hand, I love teaching people how to be a wedding planner, so it wouldn’t make sense for me to prioritize finding a wedding planner trainer when I can do that myself and find joy in doing it!

TL;DR: strategically delegate and hire people that are passionate about doing tasks you don’t find joy in and people who are good at said tasks so you can add value to your team and gain momentum in your growth.

Pillar 2: Work on your network

Just like how the real estate industry’s mantra is location, location, location, the wedding industry also has a mantra: network, network, network!

Despite how convenient and amazing it would be, we can’t be everywhere at once promoting our business. That’s why connecting with people is a crucial wedding business pillar for growth! But the purpose of networking with other wedding professionals isn’t just to climb higher on the social ladder. Instead, you want to make genuine connections with people you truly respect and who also return that respect and believe in your business’s mission. When you can make meaningful relationships like this, other professionals in the field will want to bring new customers to you and promote and praise your business when you’re not in the same room.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t think about networking in the early stages of my business, but once I started focusing on building a strategic network around me, I saw tremendous growth — especially for Blush. And it’s all because the people I connected with sincerely believe in our company.

Pillar 3: Be amazing at one thing

If there’s one mistake I see when coaching new wedding professionals, it’s that they offer way too many services, which leads to burnout. It happens because a new and excited wedding planner enters the industry with two or three clients but then worries about their income. They offer other services like floral, rentals, managing venues, and maybe even more because they think that will solve the income issue. But this doesn’t allow them time to perfect their original craft: wedding planning. It also doesn’t allow them the opportunity to see if they even like wedding planning at all because they’re spreading themselves thin with other tasks and services. Before they know it, they’re not making as much money as they hoped and they’re getting exhausted.

Before you make this mistake of offering several options in your business, ask yourself these questions:

1. What are you known for?
2. What do you want to be known for?
3. What are you amazing at and what kind of job inspires you?

If you want to scale your wedding business, be the best at one thing. That one niche will help establish you as the expert in your field and make you stand out from your competition.

I know how difficult it is to do this, but I promise when you niche down to one service, you will grow exponentially in that area and become an established expert in your field.

It’s hard work to grow a wedding business

But hopefully, these three wedding business pillars on how to build a six-figure business (or simply expand your business) help you! I promise that if you’re dedicated to following these pillars, you’ll scale in no time. If you’re still feeling like you need some extra help, come talk to me! I would love to see how our team can help take your business to the next level