Pick Four*

I recently fell in love with a goal-setting workbook called Pick Four*.  In Ron Dawson’s interview with us a few weeks ago, he mentioned this goal-setting strategy.  (Ron always has brilliant business insight.  I rushed to Amazon to learn more about this book.)

Seth Godin published the book based on Zig Ziglar‘s goal-setting techniques.  Seth asks readers to pick four goals, write out ‘the story’ of accomplishing these goals, and write a daily summary on the accomplishments (or non-accomplishments) in working towards the goal.  It’s easy-peasy, simple!

I’ve recently started charting out my goals for the first quarter of 2012 with Pick Four* and I’m finding it very helpful and FUN.  What I like about this tool (versus others that I’ve used) is the daily journaling involved.  Taking five minutes to reflect on my goals and accomplishments daily is helpful in achieving goals.  And, the idea of picking four goals ONLY goes nicely with my own goal-setting strategy where I never focus on more than three or four goals at one time.

I highly recommend Pick Four* for your goal-setting!

* Note: If you follow one of the links to Amazon to purchase the book, Sage Wedding Pros will receive a small affiliate commission.

A New Year! A New Plan! – 2012 Workbook

We’ve put all of the posts into a workbook for you to input your strategy (by typing or handwriting).  Print it out and reference it all year round.  The workbook is 17-page Word document.  You can download it here:

 2012 Workbook – A New Year! A New Plan! – $10

Happy New Year!

Today, let’s create a financial plan!  Yipppeeee!  How are you going to be profitable in 2012?  You’ll want to revisit your financial review that we did for your business in 2011.  It will help to think about your pluses and minuses for the last year when planning for next year.

Also, if you need a refresher, make sure to download our Accounting 101 series.

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Financial Planning

Financial planning can seem ominous if numbers aren’t your friends.  But, after you’ve got yourself organized, the planning part is actually pretty straightforward.  What money do you foresee coming in?  What money do you foresee coming out?  This is guesstimating with best assumptions.  It’s as simple as that.

There are 2 items that will help you in your planning: a sales plan and an expense budget.  I like to make this even simpler and combine the 2.  If you do nothing else to plan for your business finances in 2012, make a Cash Flow Spreadsheet.  The Cash Flow Spreadsheet looks at cash coming IN and going OUT.  What sales do you have forecasted?  What expenses do you have budgeted?  It combines everything so that you know exactly where you are at every step of the way.

We wrote about this a few months back so I won’t beat a dead horse.  Review everything about cash flow planning here. You can download our Cash Flow Spreadsheet here:

Sage Wedding Pros – Cash Flow Plan: $5

The key to this sheet is making sure to review it each month.  Just like with goal-setting, the more you revisit your plan, the better you’ll be able to realize it.

IN SUMMARY

We’ve been REALLY busy over the last 3 weeks!  Thanks for joining us!  I realize you may not have had the chance to get through all the exercises.  We want to make this easy on you, so come back on Tuesday and we’ll have the 3 week series available for you to download.

Happy Holidays!

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

Over the next 3 weeks we will be helping you put together a plan for 2012.  This week, we’ll be examining our past.  In week 2, we’ll be focused on the present.  And, in week 3, we’ll be building for the future.  We’ll be examining our marketing, operations, and finances.

Make sure to revisit our post from yesterday where we reviewed your marketing strategy in this past year.

Let’s continue!

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Do an inventory of your business operations…

Your business operations are the ‘who, what, and where’ of your business.  How does your business function?  How did it run in 2011?  Was it smooth as silk?  Or were there any hiccups?  It may be a good idea to whip out a calendar and review the year month by month.  OR, examine your 2011 clients to see if your operations best supported their needs.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Did you have any personnel?  Were they interns, contractors, or employees?  Did you feel they were hired and trained effectively?
• How about your suppliers?  (These are the people whom you order raw materials from or the outside people who help service your clients?)  Did they deliver when promised?  Are they good partners for your business?
• Do you have an organizational chart?
• Do you have systems and processes?
• Do your systems and processes help you run a smoother business?  Do they bring consistency to the client experience?  Do they help you in training personnel?
• Do you have solid accounting procedures?
• Have your contracts been reviewed by a legal professional?
• Do you have trademarks and copyrights to protect your company name and your intellectual property, respectively?
• Where do you meet with clients?  Is it a good representation of your company and your brand?

Now, make 3 columns on a sheet of paper and label them each: “Operational Factors, Strengths, and Weaknesses”.  Spend a few minutes listing strengths and weaknesses for the following operational factors:

• Your personnel: interns, contractors, and employees
• Your hiring and training procedures
• Your suppliers
• Your business systems (particularly your sales process and your ‘production’ process – or the process by which you make your goods or the process by which you service a wedding)
• Your legal protection
• Your accounting process
• Your location (if you work at home, where do you meet with clients?)

By examining your strengths and weaknesses you should be working towards areas of improvement for 2012.

Come back tomorrow and we’ll review your financial strategy in 2011.

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

Over the next 3 weeks we will be helping you put together a plan for 2012.  In week 1, we’ll be examining our past.  In week 2, we’ll be focused on the present.  And, in week 3, we’ll be building for the future.  We’ll be examining our marketing, operations, and finances.

The 3 weeks will be based on elements that we teach at The Simple Plan, our business planning education for wedding pros.  If you’ve done The Simple Plan – just whip it out and freshen it up!  BUT never fear, if you haven’t come to the workshop or done The Exclusive with one of us, you’ll still benefit from this series.  We’ll be referring to many of our previous posts so that you can catch up on anything you’ve missed in 2011.

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

Image: Creative Commons

Let’s get started!

Do an inventory of your marketing results…

Let’s think about the past year(s) and what you were able to achieve in regards to your marketing strategy.  Here are some questions to get your juices flowing:

• Do you know who you are and who your customer is?  Can you clearly define both?
• Does your branding reflect you, your business, and what your ideal customer is drawn to?  Are your website, business cards, and promotional materials consistent in your branding identity?
• What makes your product or service different?  What is the value that your company brings to its clientele? to the wedding experience?
• How good at you at communicating (and selling) the value that you bring to the client experience?
• Does your pricing appropriately reflect the value of your product or service?  Is it in line with what the market demands?
• How did you promote your business?  What worked and what didn’t work?  What was a good investment of your time and money?  What was a poor investment?

Now, make 3 columns on a sheet of paper and label them each: “Marketing Factor, Strengths, and Weaknesses”.  Spend a few minutes listing strengths and weaknesses for the following marketing factors:

• Knowledge of your market – regional and national
• Knowledge of your business niche and your ideal customer
• Your sales ability and technique
• Your branding
• Your product and the value it brings to the market
• Your pricing
• Your promotional strategy

It’s easy to be hard on ourselves so don’t leave out the STRENGTHS.  We focus so much on what we haven’t done in our business, but it’s important to reflect back on all the things we’ve been able to achieve.

Join us tomorrow as we take a look back on your business operations.

I recently wrote a piece for Dare Dreamer Magazine covering this issue.  You’ll want to read it here.

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Yesterday, I shared my 5 rules for adding revenue streams to your business.  Today, let’s talk about service and product lines that you can add to your business.  Keep in mind that one of my rules is to stay true to your niche and brand. Don’t add revenue streams just to make money.  Make sure that they make sense for your business.

Here are some ideas of ways that you can expand your revenue.  Be creative to find services that meet specific needs for your clients.

Expand to Other Milestone Events

This is a natural progression for many of us in the wedding industry.  We help people celebrate the major milestone of their wedding.  How about other milestones?  Baby showers?  Birthday parties?  Anniversary celebrations?  Many businesses in our industry attempt to do this, but few do it well.  They have a little blip on their website that mentions these other events, but they haven’t found a way to truly market it and price it so that it’s profitable.  (Revisit my rules 4 & 5 from yesterday.)

A couple of businesses that do this very well are Couture Parties in Newport, Rhode Island and Little Posh Parties in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Stephanie Frazier Grimm of Couture Parties is committed to throwing kids parties.  It’s not just a blip on her website.  She blogs regularly about these events and really targets the luxury kid market.  Juliet Douglas of Little Posh Parties (an off-shot of Green Orchid Events) has expanded her kid party services by organizing “A Date With Your Daughter”, a charity tea party for moms and little girls.  It’s a great way for her to give back and build relationships with potential clients.

There is a lot of opportunity for repeat business by expanding into other milestone events if you are committed to developing a marketing plan and financial strategy for making them successful.  I think our industry leaves money on the table by not exploring more “repeat business”.

Sell a Product

This is a tricky revenue stream to add.  I see a lot of “junk” out there that doesn’t really solve the clients’ needs.  Don’t introduce a product to sell as part of your business unless it’s a match for your brand and it’s meeting your target market.

If we listen to the needs of our clients we will see that they will express a need and desire.  It’s our job to provide the solution.  Being attentive to these needs is where innovation is born.

Carla David of Carla David Design did just this when she launched Say Cheese Props.  This off-shoot of her stationery and design business provides props for photo booths and sets.  Brides no longer have to spend time crafting fun gimmicky props for their photo-booth.  Carla’s also meeting the needs of photographers and event planners in our industry.  Win-Win-Win!

Some other products for you to explore as a revenue stream:

• renting out design equipment to your clients for their events (makes use of all those props, vases, linens, and etc that you’ve acquired, particularly true if you are an event designer)
• publishing an e-book for brides-to-be on your expertise (ejunkie.com makes it easy for people to upload and sell their e-books)
• development of a product that matches your brand (explore options in drop-shipping if you don’t want to produce the product yourself; creating a private label partnership with an already established product is also a great option)
• ads (if you have a successful blog, consider selling advertisements in the side column)

Partner With Other Wedding Businesses

Continue to explore ways to think outside the box.  Sometimes a wedding pro may be facing the need of client but doesn’t have the expertise to service their client in a way that you can.  Here’s a great example shared by Kateri Harried, owner of Klover Events.  She has been able to partner with bridal salons to help produce trunk shows.  It’s been beneficial to her business in the following ways:

• Expanding relationships with other wedding pros to promote the event and give them the opportunity to be a part of the “grand gift bag”.  It keeps her in the know of people in her area.  As Kateri said, “it keeps your finger on the pulse and you’re often the “go-to” on new business referrals. “
• She charges a fee to wedding vendors to be a part of the gift bag and promote their business to a high-end bridal audience.   (This added revenue stream is a great bonus for her business.)
• It is a smaller event that provides an opportunity to have direct contact with potential customers.

I love this!  Kateri has found a way to not only solve the needs of brides, but also bridal salons, while expanding her ability to meet potential clients.  Brilliant!

What are your additional revenue stream ideas?  Please share a comment with our readers below.

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A couple weeks ago, I covered a series called “How to Make a 6-Figure Income – REALLY!”  We deduced that there are no short cuts.  If you want to make $100k+ income you have to work REAL hard.  I want to pick up where we left off and talk about building additional revenue streams for your business.

What is an additional revenue stream?

You started your business based on a desire to service brides and grooms with your craft.  And chances are that you are offering some wedding related service: wedding planning, design, photography, etc.  An additional revenue stream would be a service or product line that is different from your core service offering.

You may already be offering a few service lines.  For example a photographer that offers wedding photography and portrait photography.  Today and tomorrow, these blog posts will help you think of additional products and services you can sell in order to beef up your income.

My rules for additional revenue streams…

I’ve got 5 basic rules for adding revenue streams to your offering:

1 – Stick to your niche, your brand, and your mission

If you are known for an expertise or specialty, stick with that.  This isn’t the time to become the jack of all trades, master of none.  This also goes for your branding and your core ideology (or mission statement.)  Look back to these 3 things and see how you can bridge an additional service or product offering.

If your specialty is carnival-themed weddings, this isn’t the time to branch out into vintage rustic chic weddings.  Stick with your niche and your branding and grow from it.

2 – Build upon the strengths of your business

Use the strength that you’ve built as a starting point.  If you’ve become known for carnival-themed weddings, maybe there is an opportunity to sell a few carnival related items from your website or publish an e-book on carnival-themed events.  Use your strength to build more strength.

3 – Think outside the box

There are so many opportunities out there just ripe for the picking.  Be creative and resourceful.  What are some of the complaints/frustrations/challenges you hear from engaged couples about the planning process?  Do you have a good solution?  Pay attention to the needs of your clients and you may come up with a great way to service them.

Don’t be afraid to try something and see how it works.  It’s OK to package something as a “beta trial” for a discounted rate until you fine-tune the service or product and can fully launch it.  If you find in the trial phase that it’s not a fit for the client or your business, then scrap it and look for something new.  If it works, find out how to market it and sell it.

4 – Cover your 4 Ps of Marketing

What is the Product (or Service) you’re selling?  How will you Price it?  Where will you Place it to be sold?  (Or – how will you distribute this product: retail, wholesale, direct, online.)  How will you Promote this?

5 – Look at the numbers

Do the math.  How much will it cost you?  How much will it earn you?  Is it worth the time and money?

Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing some revenue stream ideas for your business.  If you have some fun ideas you’ve seen out there for ways to expand your income, please email me at michelle-at-sageweddingpros-dot-com before 5pm EST today and I’ll share your tip in our series and credit you and your business.

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The following is a post written by me, featured on Nancy’s Liu Chin’s Brown Bag Blog.  Make sure to visit Nancy’s blog for all sorts of goodies, inspiration, and business know-how.

This week we are discussing the question of all questions in business ownership:

Where do you want to go with your business?

At the end of your business’s life, you’ll most likely end up in one of three places:

• Selling Your Business
• Passing On Your Business
• Closing Your Business

If your plan is one of the first two, you’ll want to create a succession plan.  You’ll want to start laying out the roadmap by which you build your business and pass it along to a new owner, a family member, or your employees.

Here are some considerations that I want you to make in exploring each of these options in the succession of your business:

Selling Your Business

Here are some things to keep in mind if you want to sell your business someday:

• Write a succession plan.  Identify a potential buyer.  This can be a real actual company that may be interested in acquiring your business to strengthen their company.  Or, you can create a “type of” buyer that would buy your business.
• Identify the reasons that this buyer would be acquiring your business.  Is it your incredibly strong brand name?  Is it for your assets and equipment?  Is it your innovation in the industry?  Is it to gain competitive advantage?  Is it because of your reputation and goodwill in your region?  Is it your profitable business model?
• Build a succession plan around the assumption that this business (or person) will acquire your business.  Structure your every business move around this and the reasons they would buy your business.  You are now in the business of selling your business – not jut the product or service on which your business is modeled.

Passing Along Your Business

If you plan to leave your business to family members or employees, here are some points to consider:

• Write a succession plan.  Who would you like to see take over this business?  How will you train them to do so?  Will they take on any ownership in addition to managing operations?
• Find the right people for the right jobs and let them do their work.  Often employees perform poorly because we expect them to do something that they aren’t skilled at doing OR we haven’t trained them sufficiently.  Your job is to teach them how to do so or put them in a role where they can excel.  Once you have the right people in the right positions, you company will thrive better than ever.
• Create a timeline and start working towards this now.  If your plan is to take a less active role in your business in 10 years, then start NOW in paving the path to get there.
• Study other businesses with solid succession plans.  Nordstrom and Zappos are two strong companies with succession plans at every level of their operations – not just at the executive level.

Closing Your Business

You may already know that you have no desire to sell or pass along your business.  Once you retire from this business, your business will close.  OR – you may not know this yet… you may just find yourself there some day.  Here are some questions to ask yourself as you explore this:

• How long do you see yourself working in your business?
• Do you see yourself evolving your business into something new?  For example, if you have a brick-n-mortar flower shop do you foresee closing your shop to service a limited number of exclusive events on a smaller scale?
• What is your timeline for closing your business?  If your longest sales cycle is 2 years (2 years between booking an event and servicing the event), when do you stop taking new jobs?
• How will you decide that it’s a good time to close your business?
• Will you sell any portion of your business?  Your assets – equipment, machinery, and inventory – can all be sold.

Other Elements of a Succession Plan

I’ve identified the first big question in creating a succession plan for your business: what do you want to do with your business?  It’s up to you to fill in all the other little pieces.  A succession plan is much like a business plan in that it details a series of goals in relation to your business model.  It identifies where you are and how are you going to get to the eventual goal you have for your business.

Another element of the succession plan is planning for the scary questions: what if something happens to you? How will your business go on without out?  Can it go on without you?  What does that look like

What do you think?  What are your thoughts on the future of your business?

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The following is a post written by me, featured on Nancy’s Liu Chin’s Brown Bag Blog.  Make sure to visit Nancy’s blog for all sorts of goodies, inspiration, and business know-how.

Yesterday, I brought up the question of all questions in business ownership:

Where do you want to go with your business?

It’s a challenging question to answer.  You may not have all the answers just yet, but start working on creating the path for the eventual finish to your business.  Yes – folks – everything comes to an end.  What does that end look like?

Business owners generally end up in one of the following places…

3 Options for the Future of Your Business:

Sell Your Business

Many people dream of selling their business and making millions from it.  (I know I do!)  Often a business owner that has built a successful business will realize and learn (and do some quick math) that they can sell their business for much more than they actually make in annual revenue.  This is what is most enticing about selling your business.

In reality, a small owner-run business is not easy to sell.  The wedding industry these days has very little barrier to entry.  (We’ve all seen this as wedding pros pop up quickly each month.)  And with such little barrier to entry, why would someone buy a business if they can’t easily start their own business?  This is a challenge you will certainly face if you goal is to someday sell your business.  It emphasizes the importance of creating a succession plan.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss considerations you should make if you plan to sell your business some day.

Leave Your Business to Your Family or Employees

You may be dreaming of the day that your family (or if your employees are like family – then your employees) take over your business.  You have a vision of creating a legacy that can be carried on without you.

Before my life in the wedding industry, I worked for a small company who had this as a succession plan.  The owner had operated and owned the business for 15 years and she wanted to retire.  Her succession plan was to turn the business over to 2 employees who had worked in the business for many many years.  The plan was that they would earn their equity (ownership) in the business over 5 years.  This would be based on the company’s profit performance.

Two things happened.  The first is that this succession turnover began in 2000 – and then came the dot bomb. Despite everyone’s efforts to keep the company going, the economy took its toll on the business. The company did not have a strong profit performance and the owner was forced to close.  Regardless of her best efforts in creating a succession plan there were other circumstances that took over.

The other – incredibly significant problem – was that the owner had a very hard time relinquishing control to her employees in regards to daily operations.  She was every bad stereotype in terms of being a horrible manager.  She led by fear and threats.  She had an incredible team but she never let them do the work they were hired to do.  I watched profits slide in large part due to this factor.  She thought she wanted to leave the business to her employees, but she couldn’t let go of control.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss considerations you should make if you plan to pass on your business some day.

Close Your Business

Closing a business is not something people generally plan for.  It’s generally something people fall into if they aren’t able to sell it or leave it to anyone.  But, I’m being REAL here.  You may have no desire to someday sell your business.  You may see your business solely as a purpose for gaining income for the next several years until you retire or move onto something else.  And, you may not have a team of people you to which you want to leave your business.  Closing your business is a very realistic choice in the future of your business, particularly in the wedding industry.

Whether you “plan” to close your business some day or it’s something that just happens “unplanned” there are considerations for you to make…

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss considerations you should make if you plan to close your business some day.