If you’re finally taking that leap into entrepreneurship, there can be an equal amount of excitement about starting this new chapter as there are feelings of uncertainty about what the future holds. If this is what you’re feeling right now, you’ve come to the right place!

I took a leap of faith and quit my well-paying, 9-5 wedding and event management job nearly two decades ago, and I admit — it was not an easy feat to get to where I am today with two thriving businesses. There was a learning curve and accompanying struggle that I had to go through. Now, I don’t want this to deter you! There are many mistakes I made along the way that I’m now passing along to people who don’t know where to begin or feel lost about how to start a business.

My hope is that I make the process of starting your own wedding business much more headache-free by sharing the strategies I’ve learned over the years about how to run a successful business after going through my own trial and error journey as an entrepreneur.

With that being said, today, I want to share the three best tips that I have for starting your wedding business to help you get started on the right foot. Let’s get into it!

Tip 1: Keep it simple

You don’t have to spend countless hours perfecting every aesthetic aspect of your business — your website, logo, copy, etc. can all wait until you figure out the most important thing about running a business: booking clients!

I know it’s tempting to get caught in the ‘pretty’, but the reality is, you don’t have a business until people start paying you for what you do! So before you focus your energy on a fancy website, I want you to focus your energy on your strategy for finding and booking clients. A simple logo and easy-to-navigate website that includes your contact info and packages is plenty enough to start your business. As you navigate through the stages of your business, you can think more about updating your website and brand!

A second part to this tip is setting up your Instagram page. I know that Instagram often brings a little sense of dread for new entrepreneurs. After all, it’s just another thing you have to add to your to-do list, but as you’re just starting your business, you don’t have to worry about following the “best” practices out there. Simply… Post! And post consistently.

As you grow your business, you can always hire someone to elevate page, but in the beginning, just focus on the basics so you can focus on selling. (More about a very doable strategy you can use in the next section.)

Tip 2: Post educational content on Instagram

Did you know that 83% of engaged couples research their wedding vendors on social media before booking them? This means, as a wedding professional, it’s necessary to have an Instagram. Even if you’re not a wedding professional, Instagram has always been important for entrepreneurs in creative industries because it allows potential customers see your product in action and trust it more. When Instagram is the 7th most visited platform in the world and the 4th most-used social platform, you can see why I encourage it so much and why I believe it’s not just how to start a business, but how to grow and scale it, too!! 

As a new business owner, you may not have a lot of real weddings or client results content to share, but you do have a plethora of tips, tricks, and knowledge that pose you as an expert in what you do! This is what I mean by posting educational content — answer your clients’ burning questions in the form of Instagram posts, videos, and most importantly, Reels.

Social media can be a beast to tackle, so if you want to learn more in-depth, check out this podcast episode with Bianca Trevino about how to stay visible on Instagram! If you need help with Reel content creation, you’ll find my Reel Traffic Toolkit helpful! In this video course, I take you through how to film and edit your Reels, and offer you 150+ Reels prompts you can use right away!

Tip 3: Network!

Networking has become a bit of a lost art — perhaps the pandemic had something to do with that, or maybe it’s because our world is becoming more and more digital by the day. One thing is for sure: I can contribute 99% of the success I have now to the partners I work with in the industry.

We grew each other’s businesses through referrals and spreading our networking power. But this strong network didn’t come from just sending each other the occasional DM — this isn’t how to build a business. This strong referral network happened because we left our computers, went to networking events, and were bold enough to walk up to each other (as complete strangers at the time) to ask each other about our businesses.

I highly recommend that you start networking by going to in-person events as well! I know it can be intimidating at first, but the benefits you’ll reap are worth it.

That wraps up my best 3 tips for how to start a business!

There you have it! My three tips for starting a business. If you’re looking for more tips about how to move forward in your business, take this short quiz to figure out which stage of business you’re in, and get my top tips for taking it to that next level!