Here’s a snippet of the interview…

What has been the most rewarding part of being an entrepreneur for you? What has been the most challenging?

The most rewarding has also been the most challenging. Being an entrepreneur has given me the flexibility to create my own lifestyle. When my husband and I were married in 2004 we discussed the kind of life we wanted to create for ourselves. In hindsight, this was one of the smartest things we ever did. We decided that we wanted the opportunity to raise our children TOGETHER. And, so we embarked on a life that would allow us to be home with our children – each of us active in their lives. I began my stationery business. And, my husband continued his consulting business. Being entrepreneurs has afforded us this lifestyle. I truly have an equal partner in marriage and family.

While this is rewarding, it is also a challenge. For the first 16 months of my daughter’s life (a few years back) we were her only caretakers and we ran 2-3 businesses. This was an incredible shuffle of schedules and baby passing. Slowly we took on additional help: babysitting and then preschool. But initially we were the only ones caring for our child. It’s what we want. And, it was crazy hard. But, we look back and say, “We were both there!”

 (Follow this link to read the whole interview - including something that none of you know about me. )

One of our first orders of business around these here parts is to let you know about some changes being made to the blog this year.  We are so grateful for all the great feedback we received on the blog.  It really helped us know what you find valuable, what you’d like to learn more about, and what you’d like to see less of.  So, we are going to try some new things here.  Please let us know your thoughts in the months to come.

First, we are going to be posting 2 to 3 times per week (instead of 5).  This is for 3 reasons.  One, we know that not everyone has the chance to read the blog every day. (Tho, I’m pleasantly surprised by how many of you are daily readers!  Thank you!)  I know from my own blog reading that I start to feel behind with many of the blogs where I can’t simply keep up with the frequency of posts.  It begins to feel like a chore.  We don’t want our readers to have that experience.  Two, some of the weekly posts (A Year Ago Today, Insider Interview) are not read as often as the more in-depth content.  We don’t want this blog to become staid with a couple posts each week that get glossed over.  We want you to come here and find value in everything you read.  Three, my hope is that I will have some more time for some other writing and educational projects.  I love writing.  I love writing this blog.  But, I’d like to see what direction my writing will take if it’s focused on other material outside of the blog.

So, not much will actually be changing other than dropping the “Year Ago Today” post.  (I’ll be finding a better way to do this sort of recap.)  And, the Insider Interview will not happen every Friday, but sporadically once or twice each month.  The 2 to 3 posts per week going forward will continue to have the information you’ve come to love: actual business tools to use in your business.

I’m excited to get started!

Thanks for your faithful reading.

In the New Year, may your right hand always be
stretched out in friendship, and never in want.
― Irish toast

Image: Creative Commons

We’ll be taking next week off (from work and blogging).  Catch you in 2012!

Here are all the details:

The Simple Plan
February 7-8, 2012
9:30am-4:30pm (each day)

The Ritz Carlton
160 East Pearson Street
at Water Tower Place
Chicago, Illinois 60611
(hotel rates are available; see BELOW)

The Simple Plan workshop is about collaboration. Join us for a simple approach to writing your business plan. In two days, we will work with you to:

• Write a mission statement for your business
• Set short and long term goals
• Refine your target market and your niche
• Determine how many weddings you need to do to be profitable
• Examine your advertising and whether it’s working for your business.
• Identify how to grow your business: when to hire people, how to do so, and how to train them
• Make a sales plan
• Make an expense budget
• Learn how to understand if you’re financial successful
• Network with other business savvy wedding professionals

COST: $499 includes all workshop materials including The Simple Plan ™ workbook. Lunch will be provided for you on both days. (The early bird rate is $449 thru January 20.)

Guarantee: We are confident that you walk away with a business plan, a stronger business perspective, and an all-encompassing strategy. If you don’t finish the workshop feeling that you’ve gained value for your business, we will fully refund you.

A VERY BIG THANK YOU to The Ritz Carlton for hosting us!

And a big thank you to our Thursday Therapy Chicago hosts Joan Cinquegrani of Five Grain Events and Kelly Marie Uss of Fleur Inc. for helping us coordinate this workshop.

Need more info?

Visit The Simple Plan website here.
SEE what past graduates have to say.
SEE FAQs here.

Wanna buy tickets?

Visit Eventbrite for ticketing here.

Wanna split this into 2 payments?  Click the google shopping cart by January 10th to make your first payment of $224.50.  An invoice will be sent to you on February 1st for the second payment.

Hotel Rates and Reservations

The Ritz Carlton has extended a rate to our group of $195/night.  Please make the reservation directly thru:
Shannon Moore, Catering Sales Manager
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Chicago (A Four Seasons Hotel)
160 E. Pearson, Chicago, IL 60611, USA
voice:    312.573.5027
email:    shannon.moore@fourseasons.com

Etcetera…

Please email me if you have any questions: michelle-at-sageweddingpros.com

We will be setting 1-2 more dates/cities for 2012.  We take our interest survey into strong consideration when determining our workshop cities… so let us know where we should go.

I am thankful for you.

I know I sound like the Oscar winner who thanks all the ‘fans’ out there.  It is a bit contrived.  But, I hope you don’t take it that way.

I really do honest-to-god thank you for reading Sage Wedding Pros.  I feel like the luckiest girl in the world for being able to blend all of my super random talents and work histories into this awesome job that I have.  I get to meet and work with small business owners every day, teach nerdy things, and watch growth and evolution.  This blog allows me the first step in that relationship with so many of you.

And, by the way, I do love to write.  It’s funny to think that when I was little girl I thought of being a writer.  But – let’s be honest – doesn’t everyone?  And, so I get to write something every day.  And, by golly, people read it.  THANK YOU!  (I’m getting a little misty thinking about it.)

So, this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for YOU.  Thank you so much for reading.  Thank you for sharing the posts whether by email, Twitter, Facebook.  Thank you for commenting.  Thank you for your lovely little emails sharing your insights with me.

Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!

Kelly and I will be taking the next three days to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families.  We wish you and yours a day of peace, rest, good food and good company!

A couple weeks ago I had the honor of speaking on pricing strategies at Posh Retreat, a filmmakers retreat and workshop for women in Cancun Mexico.  This was a real treat for me.  For starters, I love speaking and I love teaching.  Also, it was a privilege speaking to a group of women business owners.  I love all you fabulous men out there, but let’s be real, we ladies have come a long way in the last several decades in our careers.  I have a lot of pride for my fellow fempreneurs!  Lastly, I’ve always secretly wanted to be a filmmaker so it was fun for me to see the inner workings of their craft.

Posh Retreat 2011

Posh Retreat is one of the best conferences I’ve ever had the privilege of speaking at or attending.  The seminars were informative and extremely valuable.  And, the participants were welcoming, fun, and generous.  And, not much needs to be said about the beauty of the Riviera Maya!

What blew me away is the talent coming from female filmmakers.  One of my favorite parts of the conference was viewing short clips of the participants’ work.  WOW.  The women of POSH bring creativity and artistry that is revolutionizing the wedding industry.  The emotional depth that the films brought to each event was moving and inspiring.  The storytelling was original and uplifting.

Truth be told, before getting married I didn’t understand the value of the wedding film.  And, not until I was in the industry for a few years did I really understand the need for a good wedding film or what made one different from another.  Now that I know better, I have a hard time understanding how two people could marry and NOT have a wedding film.

Here’s why…

When Andy and I married in 2004, we hired a videographer.  Being naïve to the importance of videography, this was a last minute service we added on.  What I didn’t know before that night that we married was that Andy’s 95-year-old 4’10” granny would stand up and give us the most beautiful impromptu toast about how we found ‘the rainbow connection’ in eachother.  It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life because Granny was one of the most beautiful ladies this world has ever been graced to have.  It meant so much because she and Andy shared the Muppets as an interest when Andy was a ‘small tike’ as she called him and the two of them had a very special bond.  Granny passed away a couple years ago.  I’m so glad we have this beautiful memory preserved on film.

I think we have some work to do.  Many of us in the industry understand the importance of the wedding film.  But, some of us aren’t there yet.  If you fall in the latter category, I want to ask a favor of you.  Spend a little time this week visiting a few of your local (or not-so-local) wedding videographers’ websites.  Learn a little bit more about their craft and their artwork.  Educate yourself on what a wedding film adds to the wedding experience.  It’s important for us as an industry to elevate this segment of the wedding industry in order for the engaged couple to value it also.  It starts from within.

I’m so very inspired by you Poshettes!  Thank you for such the special opportunity to collaborate with you.

Image: Creative Commons License

Kelly and I have been busy putting together our list of cities for upcoming The Simple Plan workshops. We are happy to announce that we’ll be squeezing in one more Dallas workshop this December!  This is great timing with the New Year just a couple months away.  We hope you can join us.

Here are the details:

The Simple Plan
December 13-14, 2011
9:30am-4:30pm (each day)
Edison’s Dallas
1724 COCKRELL STREET
Dallas, TX 75215

The Simple Plan workshop is about collaboration. Join us for a simple approach to writing your business plan. In two days, we will work with you to:

• Write a mission statement for your business
• Set short and long term goals
• Refine your target market and your niche
• Determine how many weddings you need to do to be profitable
• Examine your advertising and whether it’s working for your business.
• Identify how to grow your business: when to hire people, how to do so, and how to train them
• Make a sales plan
• Make an expense budget
• Learn how to understand if you’re financial successful
• Network with other business savvy wedding professionals

COST: $499 includes all workshop materials including The Simple Plan ™ workbook. Lunch will be provided for you on both days. (The early bird rate is $449 thru November 30.)

Guarantee: We are confident that you walk away with a business plan, a stronger business perspective, and an all-encompassing strategy. If you don’t finish the workshop feeling that you’ve gained value for your business, we will fully refund you.

A BIG thank you to Edison’s for hosting us!

Need more info?

Visit The Simple Plan website here.
SEE what past graduates have to say.
SEE FAQs here.

Wanna buy tickets?

Visit Eventbrite for ticketing here.

Wanna split this into 2 payments?  Click the google shopping cart by November 18th to make your first payment of $224.50.  An invoice will be sent to you on December 7th for the second payment.

Etcetera…

Please email me if you have any questions: michelle-at-sageweddingpros.com

We will be setting 2-3 more dates for 2012.  While we cannot make any certain confirmations yet, Chicago looks to be a frontrunner.  We take our interest survey into strong consideration when determining our workshop cities… so let us know where we should go.

I am a business dork.

I have always loved getting to know other business owners and finding out what makes them tick.  It seemed that I was always having coffee with wedding pros and learning about them and their business.  I started thinking about ways to share business knowledge with wedding pros.  I started thinking about this back in 2007 but wasn’t quite sure how to share it or where.  In 2009, I started writing this here blog.  Initially I thought I’d reach out to 20 readers and so be it.  It was also an outlet for me to write.  I’ve always enjoyed doing so.

In a few weeks I came to see that people REALLY wanted BUSINESS tools for their wedding companies – not just theory.  People wanted ACTUAL “how you do this” type of information.  And Sage Wedding Pros began to evolve to what you see today.  Kelly Simants partnered with me and we started to develop The Simple Plan, an easy-peasy no-nonsense approach to business planning.  We wanted to change the way people saw business planning and make it fun, simple, and flexible.  We first developed the workshop and then The Simple Plan Exclusive in which we now work 1-to-1 with business owners to help take their business to the next level.

I make a better business person than I do an artist.

So 7+ years after starting my stationery business and 2+ years after starting this blog, here we are in 2011.  I do spend 85% of my work time on Sage Wedding Pros these days.  This percentage has evolved and shifted in the last several years.  I spend my days talking with business owners and learning of their challenges.  For some things I can help.  Some things I cannot.  With some people I advise them on ways to make their business smarter.  I work with these people to build their own businesses.  With some people I actually get into the meat of their business on a project.  I mostly get involved in these sorts of projects to develop financial strategy for a company.

I do still work on stationery, but I am very limited in the number of jobs I take on.  And, usually they come from referrals or past clientele.  I have to REALLY love the job and the client to take on a stationery job.  I love these jobs and I love the clients.

Some things I’ve learned about myself in this transition… I am more interested in business-building than I am in creating my own art.  I am not an artist.  I am business person.  I think I started having these feelings a few years into my invitation business.  While I first started my business out of a passion for paper and creating, I later realized that I was more passionate about creating the business.  And, truth be told, creating invites (for 70+ clients a year) became boring to me.  I know that sounds crazy to all of the amazing artists in our industry.  But, I wasn’t intellectually stimulated by spending most of my days working with my hands.  Don’t get me WRONG – I enjoy making handmade things.  I enjoy it very very much.  But, in terms of my career, I soon came to enjoy the business-making much more.  I am a strategy girl.  I like puzzles.  And, business-building allows me to solve puzzles.

And, so I naturally evolved into this place I am now.  It was not an intentional master-minded move.  I know a lot of people out there want you to think that every move they’ve make was with lots of preparation and dare-I-say-it planning… but, this is a career change that I just naturally started fitting into more and more every day.  Your career will do the same.  Be open to what life brings you.

I love helping people with their businesses.  And, I’m good at it.  I pondered the irony a few months ago when I was speaking at Eventology that I left a world of accounting to now find myself giving a talk on Accounting for Creatives.  It’s interesting how life comes full circle.  It’s interesting how we’re drawn to our roots, whatever those might be.

So, these days my life is a really great mix… mostly business strategy… that puzzle-solving that I love… mixed with some sweet artistic release on very special invite jobs… which I enjoy now more than ever and keeps me connected to the industry.

Thanks for listening to my story.

How about you?  How has your career evolved?

An envelope I 'wove' recently for Elevated Envelope - visit ephemera-press.com for details

A common question I’m asked is: “What are you working on these days?”  I thought it’d be fun to share with you.  I always enjoy learning what other people fill their days with.  It’s also evolved a lot in the last few years as Sage Wedding Pros has taken off.  Today, learn a little bit more about me and how I got here exactly.

Career Transitions

In my younger years, I was very intentional about deciding how my career would go (or so I thought).  I applied for colleges at age 16, identifying the top accounting programs in the nation.  I had visions of ‘rising the corporate ladder’ and knew that USC’s accounting program could get me there.  I worked for Deloitte right after college, an incredible experience in which I truly learned the ins and outs of business.  If you can read a company’s numbers you can understand the ‘secret code’ to how things happen in that organization.  But, I was young… and I longed for ‘more’.

I knew I wanted to leave the world of accounting for a more creative life.  So, in 2000 I left my prestigious job at Deloitte for a small but well-established company that imported and distributed children’s high-end fashion.  I was a west coast sales manager and also oversaw the corporate showroom in LA.  It was a huge change but I loved the opportunity to build relationships with people as my sales responsibilities required.  I also loved merchandising window displays and communicating to our client-buyers how the brand ideals from our French manufacturers could be shared with their American customers.

In my job I worked mostly with specialty boutique buyers and some high-end department store buyers.  The boutiques were independently-owned clothing stores and the owners were just every-day people.  I became so intrigued with the life of the entrepreneur.  I found myself unconsciously researching these business owners during my sales meetings with them.  How did they start their business?  Why did they start a business?  What are the biggest challenges they face?  And, in 2004, I decided to give entreprenurialism a shot.  I quit my job and jumped in head first.

An invitation company is born!

I have always loved paper and launched my business mmm… paper.  Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing.  I didn’t know a thing about design, but I loved paper.  In hindsight, this was totally irresponsible of me!  But, I learned a lot.  And, I learned to specialize in the paper and making paper come together.  I am a tactile designer, not a graphic designer.  And, I specialize in forming wedding invites out of beautiful papers.

The early days of my business were trial and error.  I made some little notecard and stationery sets and would sell them to friends and parents’ friends.  I even did a craft show in a small town near my parents’ house and failed miserably.  (Everyone said I was too expensive.  HA!)  My mom, god bless her, bought 5 sets of stationery at that craft show.  She was my only customer.

I had a friend who was getting married and she knew that I was starting a business.  She asked if I’d be interested in doing her wedding invites.  I was honest with her.  I wasn’t sure if I was skilled in putting together wedding invites.  But, I planned to put some ideas together to see what she thought.  And – she LOVED them.  We ran with one design.  And, that’s when I really started thinking, “I like this wedding invite thing!  I don’t know if I want to be making notecards.  This wedding thing is amazing: the couple, the decor, the design, the colors.  I want to do wedding invites!”  And, my quick little accounting head worked quickly to realize that the profit margins were also better than selling stationery sets.

And, from there it went.  This friend had a friend at work.  The co-worker friend had seen the wedding invites I did and fell in love.  She wanted to work with me too.  And, really that’s how it all started.  Soon enough I was making wedding invites for friends of friends and their friends and co-workers, etc.

Keep in mind, I was the queen of odd jobs in addition to my growing business.  I did some part-time visual merchandising for Coach.  I helped a relative with his market research business by writing reports.  I did some bookkeeping for my father-in-law.  My business wasn’t yet paying the bills and all of these funny odd jobs allowed me the flexibility to work on my business while still earning an income.

For me, this was a time of “I’m just gonna see if this business takes off.”  When I moved to Seattle in 2005, it did.  Seattle is an incredible city.  Businesses begin and thrive there.  People support small business in a huge way.  And, it’s very easy to promote your business in Seattle and ‘be discovered’.  My style of invite design, paper crafting, was not yet being done in Seattle.  I was in the right place at the right time… and things took off!

Now, here’s for the straight-up truth about my business… I’ve had some great successes and some huge failures.  I’ve never made millions (never even close).  There have been times that my cash flow was super-solid and there are times I had a hard time paying the rent.  (But, I ALWAYS paid my rent.)  And, there are times I didn’t pay myself.  There are times that my pricing was too low and then I learned to make it right.  I always had great people work for me.  (I am so grateful for that.)  I *NEVER* have missed a deadline and I always put out quality work.  And, as I’ve matured I’ve learned that I am a better business person that I am an artist.  (More on that later.)

If you want to see how this story ends, you’ll have to come back tomorrow… please do!