Wedding Pro CEO | Building Profitable Wedding Businesses

267. What Does It {actually} Mean to Be the CEO?

• Brandee Gaar and Amanda Figueredo • Season 6

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In this episode, I’m turning the tables and letting you in on an exclusive conversation where Amanda Figueredo, one of my Inner Circle students and owner of Day of Diva, interviews me about my journey from wedding planner to CEO. 

Amanda and I dig deep into the hard truths and strategic steps it took for me to step away from day-to-day operations, build a high-performing team, and finally focus on growing my business instead of just working in it. 

This is your playbook to build a profitable wedding business without the chaos and burnout.

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Brandee Gaar:

So if you don't do weddings anymore, what exactly do you do on a day to day basis? This was one of the questions that an inner circle student came to me with a couple of weeks ago, and she said, I'm really ready to start moving myself out of the day to day more next year, but I don't really understand then what would I do? And so I, So I thought about it for a while because I was like, I want to make sure that I'm answering this question, not just kind of like a flippant answer, but I wanted her to really understand all of the things that go into really becoming that CEO of your business and what that looks like on a day to day basis. And so, I thought the best way to do that would be Her to just get to sit and ask those questions to me on the podcast because I know that many of you have dropped into my dms and asked a similar question, and I always wanna give a much more in depth answer. But it's so much bigger than just a single question. And so on today's show, we're turning the tables and Amanda with day of diva. She's a planner out of Canada, inside of my inner circle program. She's coming and she's interviewing me, asking all about how I transitioned from being a planner to actually being the CEO of my business. And now where we are. Where I'm actually not involved with blush at all because we hired a CEO this year. So this is going to be a really transparent, fun conversation for you to get to listen to and really to understand how that path looked like for me and the way that I take my students through doing the same thing in their business. So I hope that you love this episode and I cannot wait for you to get to listen. Amanda, I am so excited to have you today. Amanda is one of our inner circle students and we have been working together for, I think, three years, Amanda?

Amanda Figueredo:

years. Yeah.

Brandee Gaar:

And it's been so fun to watch her grow her company. And now she is in a stage of business where she's like, okay, Brandee, like I am ready to really step into that CEO role. Like I, you know, she's built the business, she's building out her strategic team. And now she's like, okay, what is the next stage look like where I'm really not involved in the day to day? And she asked me this question of, What do you do? Like, what does your life look like now that you aren't doing weddings? And I was like, gosh, Amanda, I don't even know. That's such a big question. I don't even know how to answer it. And then I was like, why don't you come ask me all your questions on the podcast? So I'm excited to do that today. Amanda's going to interview me. But before we do that, Amanda, can you kind of tell everybody a little bit about like who you are and a little bit about your company?

Amanda Figueredo:

Yeah, totally. I'm excited to be here. this is my fifth year in business now. We just actually as of last month, I think we just hit over 200, 000, uh, in revenue. So yeah, we're going into two busy booking months for us. So I think we will definitely exceed our goal this year actually. Um, so right now I am full time with the business. I'm looking to hire my next. Full time, um, at the beginning of 2025. And then I currently have two kind of part time, um, that take on solely weddings, plus one of our planners does a bit of our social media and marketing. Um, and then we have our assistants and our, our day of staff. So there's about, um, 16 of us total. Um, but yeah, three years ago I joined with Brandee and I had just, I. I was doing like 30 weddings, 35 weddings a year. I had a planner that worked with me. She was still kind of part time. She was starting to take on stuff for me, but it was very like, whatever kind of came in, we would just like figure it out. And I was on site and I also assisted her at every wedding. So I was still on site for our 40 weddings that we did. Um, so I was working every weekend. Um, it was. Crazy. It was exhausting. And I think we were just making over a hundred thousand. Um, and yeah, it just like the months just felt so up and down. We'd have good months, down months. I just didn't have a lot of time to be working on my business. And yeah, obviously I, enrolled in the accelerator program and it just got me so focused on the numbers. And now I, I just, Just feel really confident, you know, when we are hiring, I'm like, yep, we can afford a full time. We have enough weddings to do, um, to give her and we're, you know, giving her more tasks as well. So yeah, it's been a wild ride, but honestly, I don't think I would be here without your help.

Brandee Gaar:

you're sweet. It's so fun to, to get to see you grow and now really to move into this next stage of business. I'm excited to see what we can do in 2025 and how the revenue can grow and your team as well, but really seeing you step away from so much of the day to day has been amazing because you've into this role well. It's great. I love it. All right, Amanda, the floor is yours. you are officially the interviewer of this episode. So what do you got?

Amanda Figueredo:

I love it. Thank you. This is great. This is kind of turn, turning the tables, which is fun. okay. Yeah. First question is when did you feel ready to make the shift from kind of like wedding pro to CEO? Like, was there a pivotal point where you're like, Hey, I'm kind of ready to finish working in my business and now I want to work on my business.

Brandee Gaar:

Hmm. That's a good question. I think there was kind of phases in that to some degree, right? So it kind of went from like, I work 24 seven. If I'm not physically working, I'm thinking about work. Like it was complete chaos. So I think I hit that breaking point. Obviously first started building out a team, um, a strategic team. And I started removing myself from the day to day slowly. So I don't think that I really even started thinking about the term CEO for a while. You know, at first it was more just like, what I started noticing was the busier I was, the worse the business was doing. And that was a really big wake up call for me. So it was like, in addition to the fact that I just was Fried and genuinely wanted to like take a match to my business. it was like the busier I was. The slower we would be, what I started to realize was that was what was causing that rollercoaster effect of like, you know, we're slammed, everybody's just trying to tread water, and then six months later, we were like, why don't we have any leads? Where are the bookings? What I started to realize was that always came after fall season because in the fall, we were slammed myself included. And so I wasn't following up with leads. I wasn't actively trying to get people in consults. We weren't doing a great job at marketing. And so all the wheels kind of fell off the bus. I, when I started to realize that, I was like, I have to get out of this. we started moving me out of wedding slowly where I was only taking full service weddings and I was still doing sales. So it felt really natural to be honest, because I was able to say to clients, you know, we've got this incredible team and they would say, well, how can I guarantee to work with you? And. I would say, you know, I only handle our full service weddings and that's not because they're better or that they, you know, they take a higher priority. It's just that there's simply only so many hours in the day and I need to be able to put my full focus into, you know, our full service clients. Um, and so we started kind of doing that where I was like, okay, I'm only going to take 10 weddings this year. I'm only going to take six weddings this year. And so it really just kind of, you know, Slowly phased out, um, 2019. So about what, five years ago, six years ago is when I started giving up sales. And so that was really interesting when I gave up sales because I was positive. No one could do it as good as I could. I think we all feel that right. And what was interesting about it was. Again, it was kind of this reckoning. at that time, we were really presented with a lot of opportunities. we were doing, intimate weddings for a lot of properties in our area, which was really exciting. We're a very much destination, um, city. So we do a lot of weekday intimate weddings. Um, we were also managing a, a very high revenue generating venue. And so here I am with my hands in a million pots. And trying to do sales and it, it just wasn't working. And so I, I was like, you know, if I could get my team to do sales, it would make a lot more sense. So it, it kind of just evolved. It wasn't like there was this one day I woke up and I was like, time to be the CEO, you know, it was, how do I remove myself from this? How do I remove myself from this? And then really once, once the pandemic hit and I. I felt this need. I had a really large team. I also had a lot of connections just through, you know, I had, I had been in the industry for a long time. I felt like there were so many solo businesses that just were like, we don't know what to do. Like, we don't know how to handle the pandemic. We don't know how to handle the cancellations, the reschedules. And I just started going live on Facebook every day. Like it was just like every day I would go live and just say, here's what we're doing. Like, here's what my team is working on. Here's how we're handling a reschedule. Here's how we're handling a cancellation. It was super organic. And then that kind of led into the coaching. So yeah, it kind of, it just was like this phased back approach. And once the coaching started taking off, I was like, I can't, I physically cannot manage blush and the coaching. So that's when we brought in somebody to. Kind of take over blush as well. So yeah, it's been a phased approach.

Amanda Figueredo:

feel like it happens too where it's like one door has to close for another one to open in a way, very much so in business as well.

Brandee Gaar:

Yeah, and I think it's it's a lot of Realizing that you know, this is gonna sound so cliche because it's quote so overused But like what got you here won't get you there and it's like, you know You have to hustle to get to that point First really big revenue mark, right? Like it, it is all on you. Cause you can't hire people before you have money. Right. But then it's like, if you just continue that hustle where you're like, I can do it all, you will break at some point. And so then it, you can't keep scaling. So it's like, you have to figure out the next stage. Okay. How do I get from that first? I break it up into like, okay, you hit the first hundred thousand really on your own, right? Like, that's kind of like your hustle. And then that next stage is like 100 to like 3 to 400, 000 ish is where you're really learning to build a team and start to have to take things off of your plate so that someone else can be better at it. And that's really that middle where you're really learning how to become that CEO. And then that last stage is like half a million plus where you literally are starting to now just completely remove yourself from the business so that you can now focus on additional revenue streams, right? Like I try to explain this to our students all the time, like if you So if you aren't able to have your main company run nearly on its own, it's very difficult for you to divert your attention to another revenue stream. So you really have to build up that strategic team where they all, like you could disappear tomorrow and no one would ever know the difference because they all know what they're supposed to do on a day to day, you know?

Amanda Figueredo:

Totally. So when you were passing off the sales, what then did you, because you at that time didn't have the coaching program yet. So what was your, you were doing like how many weddings a year and like, I guess what was your main focus once you dropped sales?

Brandee Gaar:

I feel like it's so funny that you asked this, Amanda, because I feel like. This is what a lot of our students ask is like, okay, so now that you're like basically

Amanda Figueredo:

What do

Brandee Gaar:

day?

Amanda Figueredo:

do?

Brandee Gaar:

well, you know, it's, it's interesting. So once I passed off sales, which was that last piece, cause I had passed off operations at that point and marketing and now sales, my job became being able to see the company from the top down. I always, Like in it to like a baseball coach. It's like, you don't look at a baseball coach and go, what do they do all day? Right? Like their whole job is strategy and looking at each player on their team and saying, you know, is that person really best at second base or would they be better as pitcher, right? Or should I put them in the outfield or, you know, um, do I need somebody else completely? Like, do we have a weak link on our team and their whole job is strategy. And that's really what you're focused on as that C in that CEO role is. Do I have the aces in their places? Do I have every person in the role that best suits them? Is there anything that we've put on their plate that doesn't make sense on their plate? I see this a lot where it's like, as you're growing and you're growing this team, sometimes what happens is it'll just be like, well, you have an extra hour this week, so why don't you write the blog, right? Or why don't you post to the story? Then it, then it's like, Sort of becomes their job, but it's not really their job. And you've got, you know, somebody writing a blog and somebody posting a story and somebody making an Instagram post feed and somebody making the schedule and none of it makes sense. So it's just a bunch of task managers, right? So once I stepped out of all of those roles, I was really able to look and see what's working, what's not working. And one of the things that didn't work. Right when I passed off sales. So when I very first passed off sales, we had a studio and we'd had a studio for years and everybody worked in studio every day. Um, and so our whole team was there, right? And so this was pre COVID. So it made sense a lot more than it does now. Um, but we, so we had the studio and my thought was. Okay, well why don't I have, I had four full time team members, so I said why don't I have them each take a week of the month and that would be their lead week. And then, you know, if a lead comes in that week, but it doesn't close during their week, they stay with that lead still till close, but every week somebody else would take the leads, right?

Amanda Figueredo:

Whoa,

Brandee Gaar:

Heh. Yeah. So I thought, Brandee, you're so smart. Like that, that's so smart, right? Like this is going to be

Amanda Figueredo:

Divide and conquer.

Brandee Gaar:

yeah, except what was happening is I would be in the studio and I would hear the lead phone ring and some weeks I would hear, yay, a lead, you know, like so excited. And some weeks I would hear, oh, if this phone rings one more time.

Amanda Figueredo:

Yeah.

Brandee Gaar:

Yeah, that's not great. Like if, if the lead phone rings and your reaction is, Oh my gosh, this is an interruption to my day. You're not going to sell that client. And it showed, it showed big time in each person's conversion rate. And so as I started looking at it, I was like, this actually makes no sense at all, because I've got people who are doing sales that don't want to do sales and find it to be really annoying to them, and then I have people who. Like, please give me your lead week. I'll take it, you know, are so excited about it. And what's interesting about that is everybody got the same amount of commission for closing leads. Like they got extra money for closing leads, but when you are able to see, when you're able to. Really look at your staff and what they're doing and start to see money doesn't drive everybody. Some people genuinely hate certain tasks. Like they're not good at them. They don't want to do them. So that's where I say the ace is in the place is because for me I had to really look at it and go, Okay, who's great at sales? Like who wants it? Who's good at it? Who closes the highest amount? And then I took that person. I was like, you're now our sales manager. Like you're, that's a hundred percent of your role is selling, but For us, and I took it off of the other people's plates and it made so much sense.

Amanda Figueredo:

So you were kind of like overseeing everything at that point and making the strategic moves of looking at your organization as a whole and putting the puzzle pieces into place,

Brandee Gaar:

Yeah, and a lot of it too is like, you know, when you're in the day to day, I mean, think about it. I'm sure that we have so many listeners and Amanda, you, I know you've felt this too, where it's like, you know, you need an SOP for something, you know, you need a training manual for something, or you need just like a training on it. You know, you would love to be able to go out and shadow your assistants sometimes, or you'd love to be able to get some additional training to them. And it just, you just don't get to it, right? Because you're so busy. So when you are able to then have, a director of marketing, a director of operations, a director of sales, like these people that, that run the day to day, you're able to then look and go, okay, where's our team lacking? What do they need from me? Um, you're able to really see your business and say, where do we make the most money? And where are we actually, Not making money and we're spending way too much time, right? Like what's sucking up our time? But you can't do any of that when you're in it, you know, you just can't see it. It's like seeing the path when you're in the forest or when you're like over the forest, if you could see it as a whole, you can see the whole path, right? You can see it so clearly. But when you're in the middle of the trees, you're like, where do I turn next? Like, I don't even know. that's really a lot of what you're doing. what does that look like on a day to day basis? for me, I was still doing a handful of weddings, but it also meant that I was out in the market, right? So like, for me, a typical week back in those days would be like, Monday would be very strategic. I always, you guys know, I talk about CEO Mondays. I think this is really important. Massively important. So it'd be like reviewing our marketing, reviewing KPIs, reviewing your financial numbers, um, you know, reviewing your week ahead or what's coming up. So that's really like your data, just like get your, your life together and make sure everything is, Wheels on the bus. Tuesdays I always spent in studio with our team. So that was always a team day and I didn't schedule any meetings unless it was an internal meeting. So it would be like if one of my team members needed me to help them with a wedding, if they needed to talk about something about their job or anything. I was there all day in studio. They could grab me for anything they needed and we would just, you know, work through things with them. Wednesdays were a client day. Thursdays typically were a client facing day. And then Fridays were always kind of a flex day. It was like, if I had a wedding, obviously I was doing wedding stuff. If I didn't have a wedding, it was kind of like catching up on a project, different things like that. But I break my week up even still on like, what is that day's focus? So that I can really go into it with like one mindset all day. I'm not, you know, trying to go to a networking event over here, then do a one on one with a client and then do a one on one with a staff member. Like. I want my brain to work in one lane all

Amanda Figueredo:

Yes. Yeah. And yeah, I think as a business owner, it's so important to find a structure that works for you because it's, we just have, like you said, we have our hands in so many things and you can't like focus on all of it all at once.

Brandee Gaar:

Yeah, yes, a hundred percent. And that can be really frustrating because you feel like you're just being bounced around. But I think one of the disciplines, and we talk about this a lot in the inner circle, um, Amanda, with our group is No one controls your calendar but you. Like if you allow people to, you know, book in on Thursday at 2 p. m. and now you've got to drive for an hour and then drive back, like your whole day's shot. So now you just went from having a day where you're supposed to be in office working on timelines or working, whatever, working on whatever it is that you had on your agenda. You allowed that. Like that wasn't the client's fault for taking your time. You know, you have to really guide your clients, your, your vendors that want your time and say, Is this the best use of my time? Or do I need to guide this client towards a zoom call? Or do I need to say, that's not part of the service that you booked with us? but we just say yes so often because we see white space on our calendar. But as the CEO, you have to to have white space on your calendar.'cause your whole job is strategy and business growth. Like that's your literal entire job. So if you don't have the white space on your calendar to think about those things and to strategize those things, then you end up just spinning your wheels again.

Amanda Figueredo:

Yeah. Yeah. So what would you say is like the sort of milestone in terms of revenue that you would wanna hit in order to kind of be in that CEO position? Maybe taking a few weddings and having a team. Like is that something you can kind of into numbers?

Brandee Gaar:

Yeah, I do think it's different for everybody. And I'm sure that's definitely not the answer that you were looking for, but, um, you guys know I'm, I'm super transparent with financials. So it's like, I really think that can start to happen in that multi six figure area. And it really comes down to working backwards on your budget. So when we work on budgets inside of wedding pro CEO, I always want you to do your first budget as like, what's the wishlist for next year? You know, what's the wishlist of you want to make. X dollars. Let's put that in. You want to only work five weddings? Okay, so how many team members would you need then to cover all the rest of the weddings that you're gonna have for next year? We need to put salaries in for each of those people or some sort of compensation in for each of those people, right? Then we need to put in all the rest of our expenses. So you're kind of backfilling it based on what's the dream. And then now when we move to the revenue side, it's like, okay, if I only did five weddings next year. And the team did the rest. Would we have enough revenue to cover those expenses? Right? And, and really a lot of it, and Amanda, you've seen this as you've come up through the different programs inside of Wedding Pro CEO. A lot of it comes in because initially you're not charging enough. Right? So, as the business owner, when you outsource a wedding to a team member, you're paying them so much to do that wedding that there's no flow through to the business. And you haven't accounted for you to make money simply for running the business. A lot of times what we do is when we create our own compensation from our business, it's created from how many events we're doing. And at the end of the day, So you also, so yes, you're doing events, but you're also running your entire business. And if something were to happen to you and your spouse or someone else had to take over the business, they'd have to get paid, right? Like they'd have to make a salary just for being the business owner, being the CEO, running it. So I always want us to put an amount of salary into your. your budget just for you being the CEO, just for you being the business owner. And that amount can scale as you grow, right? But we don't want it to be attached to the number of weddings that you're doing. And I feel like this is probably, it's probably one of the top things that I undo with our inner circle students because the, you know, they'll come in and be like, Oh, I'm making, you know, two, 300, 000 a year. But they're like, I don't know how I could possibly pay any more people on my team because they're paying out people at like 70%. And I'm like, well, no kidding. There's no flow through to your business. The only way you make money is if you keep doing weddings. And that's not, that's not helpful at all, it's not necessarily a specific dollar amount. It's more making sure we're first profitable, that you've got flow through to the business from every single wedding that you're doing and that your salary is put into the business, whether you do weddings or not. And then, okay, how many of those weddings will I do? Because, I think we've, we've definitely had CEOs that have removed themselves from the business too fast. And it is difficult. Like you can't go from doing weddings all the time to then, Doing none, right? Cause then that's a jolt to your revenue big time there too. So I think it's a slow removal of yourself from the day to day. And some people may say like, no, I always want to do like at least five weddings a year and I'm like, great, that's great. You should then. Um, but that's not always the case.

Amanda Figueredo:

Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's good. So how many like for you guys? You have how many full time do you guys have and I guess how many weddings do you guys do a year?

Brandee Gaar:

Yeah. So we have three full time planners, one full time kind of like operations person that doesn't really do weddings. And then myself and my husband are still on payroll at the business. then we obviously have a smattering of contractors and part timers and things like that as well.

Amanda Figueredo:

And then how many weddings do you guys do like on average a year with your three full time planners?

Brandee Gaar:

it has shifted a lot. So we used to do, gosh, a ton, like 180 weddings a year. We do closer to about 120 now, and we've driven up the ticket price. Um, I will say. Our full timers, I don't want to say they do a limited number of weddings, but because they are really focused on our higher end weddings. So at least partial planning or full service. And if you're, you know, if we have listeners that are listening that are DJ, florist, you know, photographer, we're really focused on keeping our full timers on those higher ticket weddings in general. And then our part timers are taking our lowest Ticket packages and so that helps us to spread that out without having a massive payroll That was something I had to learn early on too that I definitely messed up was I just wanted everybody to be full time because I wanted it to be like I know how much is going out every single month Slow month or high month I want everybody to be full time and the challenge with that is that in slow season carrying a large payroll is very very difficult and And You know, three planners can't do all of our weddings because everyone has a slow season, right? So then you've got high season where you're booking five and six weddings deep on a weekend and then no weddings and low season. You have to really be careful about how much payroll overhead You just add on during, you know, cause you've got to cover it during slow season. So I learned that the hard way and now we keep a limited full time staff whose roles are high ticket weddings, but then also they each have a role in our business. So we've got now our CEO, Sophia, right? So she, her, she really only takes about eight weddings a year and we're very, very cautious with her schedule because. her job is to replace me and she really runs everything over there and then we have Norma, who is one of our full timers, and her focus is really the partial plans and then the small full plans. And then also manages all of our other team members. our assistants, she does all their scheduling, our part timers, and training. So she does basically everything. Training and scheduling for our part timers and our assistants. So that's really her focus. And then Ashley really focuses on Our additional market so she does really kind of all the different kinds of weddings that come in But that's a totally separate market for us And then she also handles all of our like administrative behind the scenes So those are our full timers and then our part timers are just planning weddings. Like we don't have them out networking We don't have them doing an additional job and that helps us to not have their overhead during slow season.

Amanda Figueredo:

right. So they're like contractors, like whatever comes in, it's like, okay, our three full times, this doesn't work for them. So we're going to contract you for X amount of weddings this year as they like come in,

Brandee Gaar:

So we have part timers where we know, okay, this person, we're probably going to be able to give 20 weddings next year. They're mostly going to be our base level package, but they're going to be part time employee of ours. Like we want them to be part time. They get paid hourly. We know what they're going to do. We're going to be able to fill 20 weddings for them. And They're literally just planning weddings, but we know that we can, we can have them come to staff meeting. We can have them come to team retreats so that they feel part of the team. They're learning, they're becoming like a bench in case we would ever lose somebody else, or if we start needing somebody else to be able to plan higher ticket weddings, so they're really always that person in training. And then we do have contractors. So we definitely have people where we'll say, you know, gosh, we've already booked out our entire team. Full and part time for We don't want to turn away this piece of business. We'll take it and we'll contract it out. And we have contractors that are white label under our business. I really think that that has been a game changer for our business. We love being able to do that, but we don't want that to be the bulk of our business. So that's those high weekends. You know, we, we might outsource 15 weddings a year, um, our contractors, but for the most part, they're done in house with our part timers.

Amanda Figueredo:

Okay, yeah. And do you feel like you were ever at a point where, there was some people that were kind of doing everything? Because I feel like there is that kind of growth stage where you're like, hey, I need, a full time person next year. She's kind of doing, a mishmash of things because she is my first full time, but eventually I feel like it will fall into buckets as we grow. Yes.

Brandee Gaar:

Yeah, I, I do. No, I think that's a great, it's a great question. I'm, I'm so excited we're doing this because you have great questions, which I love. I know there's listeners that are thinking the same thing. I think one of the biggest mistakes I do see, and I try to help our students be really cautious of this, um, and we'll work through this as you bring her on, Amanda, but I, you, what you don't want to do is say, well, I'm paying her. Full time so she's just basically gonna do whatever I need her to do, right?

Amanda Figueredo:

Yeah.

Brandee Gaar:

I think that's the the quick road to burnout because they really don't know what their role is and it's like they have now a ton of weddings, right? Which makes sense because that's really their biggest role. And then you're just kind of like throwing things at them. And so they don't ever really know from a week to week basis, like what their life is going to look like. And that's not fun for anybody, right? Plus they don't really understand how their role is impacting the business as a whole. And so, Again, like longevity, uh, career growth. Like, it just doesn't feel good to anybody to just kind of be like, I mean, I don't even know what I do here. I just like plan weddings and then whatever Amanda needs me to do, right? Like, that's not fun. So, yes, I do think when you bring on that first person, they definitely will do A few more of like a little bit of this, a little bit of that, then you would want them to eventually, but you really want to bring that person on and think, what is it that I, what is the biggest thing I need taken off of my plate? A lot of times what I see is that that becomes like your right hand person. It really becomes your operations person. And I would say operations and team development, because. That's a really big, I don't want to say a miss for you, like, but it's hard when you're the business owner doing all the things to really focus on those two things. So bringing that first person, it's like, what are the things that make sense to get off your plate? hiring assistants, scheduling them. Training them, following up with training for all your team, right? Like you've got now part timers. How are they being trained? they can even bring different trainings to staff meeting. they can help with networking. They can help with Outreach to different venues and things like that. Vendors want to work with more. That makes sense. Other than being like, Hey, can you write a blog next week? Or you're, you know, you're going to write all the blogs or you're going to, you're going to post the stories, but you're also going to schedule our assistants, but you don't get to hire any of our assistants, so you don't actually know what their strengths are. Like it, it, it has to make sense. Right. And so you want careful not to be like. We're going to do a little bit of marketing and a little bit of operations and a little bit of, you know, team development, a little bit of finances, like that feels overwhelming to people.

Amanda Figueredo:

Yeah, and I think that was the, that was the direction I was going to go with, like, here's everything. But I think, honestly, it creates more work for us because we're just like, oh, here's a task. Now I have to tell them to do the task where it's like, you're saying, this is your role. you're in charge of the team and the hiring and this and that. Plus, you know, kind of odd jobs I think for me will be kind of a bit of next year, but then like funneling into, okay, who's going to be our marketing person and social media

Brandee Gaar:

Right. And what I notice when we bring on this second person, right? So when you bring on that first full timer and they become, I just, I always just call them like your right hand. Like that's your person who's like, you two are in sync. They know their role. They know what they're, they're taking off of your plate. They, they get it right. Right. Almost immediately. Like I would say within six months, you're going to need another person. And that's because they've taken so much off of your plate that you're now able to focus on sales and growth more. And so now you're selling way more than you were before. That's typically what happens. And now this person is starting to be like, girlfriend, like I'm. Tapped like I'm starting to hit my max because they've taken a lot off your plate But now they're also trying to manage all these weddings. And so now you need another person. Sometimes that's another person like a planner or a DJ or photographer sometimes it's honestly just an admin person because Now we, we don't really want your right hand doing so much admin work because they would be way better serving higher end clients or, or training the team. So it's like, Oh wait, we could just bring on a VA to help us, right? Like that's an easy outsource without bringing on yet another salary, right? So it's not always that you're going to need another person like them, sometimes it's just like, okay, I gave you a bunch of admin work to do for me because at the time you had hours, but like now you don't, and I want you better focused on what I need you for. And so let's get the admin work off of you. Yeah.

Amanda Figueredo:

that has helped me a lot. okay, what's your approach to building a team of planners that you can trust to handle weddings when you're not directly involved? I feel like that is such, a crucial piece no one can do sales as good as me or no one can plan this wedding as good as me like now I'm in a position where I'm starting to pass the full plans and it's a little wracking because I'm like, I just know the level of service that I bring to our clients and it just can be, yeah, it's kind of scary passing that off with such a high ticket package as well. You're like, this is a lot of money.

Brandee Gaar:

it is. It's a lot of money and you have to, obviously, you're not going to just like hire somebody tomorrow and be like, here's a 20, 000, dollar wedding. the Biggest thing that I look for is personality. And I feel like I can train the hard skills. Like that's easy. Anybody can learn how to actually plan a wedding, but it's how do you interact with clients? How much do you care about the end result? what's your work ethic? Like will you literally go to the ends of the earth to make something come to life? Because It will be that wow for your client. It'll be that, that one step further for your client. Right. that's really what I'm looking for is those soft skills that you can't teach because in 17 years, I have definitely learned if someone doesn't get it customer service wise, they're not going to get it. Like it's just not in and they might be better in a different position. And so I can teach them. How to write a timeline, why I would put the toasts here instead of there. I can teach them, you know, on wedding day, here's the things I'm looking for, right? That's teachable, but it's not teachable to say, do you care enough to do what you need to, to make this day flawless? And do you care enough about the business? And seeing us grow because it would then affect you growing. Like I want to make a career for you. And so that's really what I'm looking for when I'm looking for staff members. And I'll just be perfectly honest for anybody that's listening. It's like, I'm so over it. I'm never going to hire another employee again. I hear you. The number of times in my business that I have been like, I'm firing everybody. And I'm just going back to being me. Y'all, it's too many to count because sometimes, I mean, the people are human, right? Like sometimes humans fail us. Sometimes you hire somebody that you think is just, I mean, they just killed it in the interviews. Like you loved them. You thought they were amazing. And then you get them in and you're like, what happened? Like, how I get snowed this bad? Right? Like it not good. Um, and so, and that happens, right? Sometimes you have to go through a few people before you get to that golden nugget. But growing a business and you being able to take back your weekends and, and not be involved in every single wedding takes really, really being intentional about saying, nope, I'm going to, I know what I learned from this person. Now I know what I'm looking for in the next person and not getting burned by it. Right. Like being like, okay, I learned from that. So I would say really focus on, that. And then with turning over the full plans, obviously that is. Not easy. And for anybody that's listening, if you charge high ticket, it's, it is difficult, right? I would say when I started doing it, I worked a lot of the weddings with our team members. So we would tell the client, like I, and Sophia are going to co plan your wedding. And the reason for that is because I wanted them to see how I interacted with the clients, the things I said, the way I said it, the way I answered emails, if I knew they had their hair and makeup trial, I, I door dash coffee over, right? Like little things that can just be small things that you wouldn't think to put in an SOP, right? To teach, but I want them to see that we're doing those things so that they can say, Oh, I didn't know I could do that. Or, Oh my gosh, that was so, that was so smart, right? Like I want to be able to do that. So it's really just teaching them about how to have that wow factor, how to have that high level of service. I would co plan a lot of our weddings and I still do sometimes, like if I, if we have a really high end wedding, I'll jump in with one of our planners and kind of just be face and also help them to see like our client doesn't want to talk to you 13 times a month. So, you know, a high end client just wants to know you're handling it. That's it. So little things like that.

Amanda Figueredo:

Okay, cool. Yeah. now that you're more removed and have a team, like are there specific numbers or metrics that you focus on and make sure that you guys are hitting in order to like keep you in that position and that role of like doing less weddings, you know, still being able to pull a salary. Like, what do you focus on with numbers?

Brandee Gaar:

kind of going back to that budget exercise, right? Like I have a, an amount that's built in for me and to the business, right? And I will be super honest. That is a much smaller amount than it used to be, right? Because I literally, I don't even go to staff meeting for blush anymore. So that was a really big transition point this year was that I, I really am not involved with blush. Much at all besides interacting with Sophia, our CEO, but I'm not involved in the day to day really at all for blush anymore. And so it goes back to that budget exercise of saying, okay, how much am I looking to take from the business. And what does that role look like? And then what am I paying? Sophia? What are we paying the staff? Like all the things that are put in there, right? And then from there we have to then know, okay, what do our sales numbers need to be to make sure that this is happening? This is why I'm so passionate about driving home that data matters because it all works backwards from there, right? Okay. So if I create this budget, And I now know, going into 2025, that I'm going to make this, and this is what all of our payroll is, and then here's what all of our expenses are, right? So now I've got a number to work from. So I've got to work backwards from there. So, if I, if I need to make, let's just say, half a million dollars, right? Like, we need to make 500, 000 in next year. Okay, well, how much is already on the books from weddings we already have right second third payments, right? So now I can remove that Okay, so that then how much do I have to sell and make in retainers or second and third payments next year? To be able to hit that half a million dollar mark. Okay, so now I know that great So now I can give a sales number to our sales team. So we have a sales manager, right? So I'm able to say to her Here's what you have to sell every single month and we don't just divide by 12 like we a terrible, terrible way to do it. Um, but I know based on history, like, okay, January, February, March are huge months for us. So we're going to put lots in those months. We're going to pull it down in different summer months. So I'm now able to work backwards and say, okay, here's what your sales numbers are. But it doesn't stop there just to say, okay, she has to sell this much. Now we've got to look at the marketing team and say, okay, for her to be able to hit that number, she has to be able to sell 15 weddings, a month, let's just say. And so for her to sell 15 weddings based on her closing ratio, we have to get 25 leads in. How are we getting 25 leads in? So it all, it like works all the way backwards. We're not guessing. We're not like, hope we make half a million dollars next year. We're literally looking at it going. We have to make half a million dollars, which means we have to sell this much each month, which means we have to get this many leads each month. And if we can get this many leads each month, she's going to be able to convert. If we're not getting that many leads, where are the leads coming from? Where do we need to double down? that's where the marketing team they'll come to staff meeting and say, we're not getting enough leads in. So what do we need to do about that? Okay. We've got to get out and get to the venues. We've got to get, you know, network a little bit more like different things like that. We all know. We have to get this many leads in.

Amanda Figueredo:

Yes, totally.

Brandee Gaar:

so that's what we're looking at. And it makes it so much easier every month. Literally, Amanda, I get reports on the first Monday of every month, and we, I can take less than an hour to look at those reports and say, okay, we've got, did we hit our sales goal or not? That's always the first one, right? Like, did we hit the sales goal or not? It's a pretty easy yes or no. If yes, great. That's exciting that we hit it. Did we exceed it? Were there any outliers? Was there anything strange? Great. We hit that number. But I also still want to see how, what our lead conversion was. Even had the number, I'm going to go look at the lead conversion and say, great, we had our sales goal, but why did we only book 20 percent of our leads last Like what happened? Right. I just want to know, I'm not mad about it. obviously we hit the sales goal, but like what happened? and then where are we in the pipeline for the rest? Right. And then I'm able to look at that and then go, I can quickly look at how many invoices do we have outstanding for the next, six months. Are we hitting our breakeven number? So it's a lot of just knowing each of those numbers and I can quickly then compare it to what we're supposed to be at. And then if we're hitting all those numbers and I'm like, good, then we're good. Right. I don't have to worry about it. We're not hitting those numbers. And I'm like, team, where are we on this? You know, how many months can we go not hitting our numbers before there's a problem? Right. So we're watching it monthly.

Amanda Figueredo:

and would you say when the like booking rate really ranges from like you booked the consult consult to essentially conversion to a paying client when you sit when that is down like what are the Key things that you look for when that number is down. Because I feel like for me, that varies so much. We get the leads, we get the consults, but then sometimes it just varies so much. Like it's 50%, it's 20%, and it's 60%. Like, what would you say for that?

Brandee Gaar:

that's where you're going to dig into those numbers and say, okay, well, even if we had a 60 percent conversion month, why, like what, why did we have the 60 percent conversion month? Was it because every lead we got that month was a referral from a venue? Okay. Well, that makes sense, right? So, hey, if that's the case. Why aren't we sending our team out to more of these venues that refer us all the time to get more referrals from them, right? Like to say, how can we be a better partner? What can we do for you? understanding what drove that number. When you have a 20 percent booking month and you look at it and you go, why? Okay, well, is it just because, because this happens a lot, is it just because people are dragging their feet and they just haven't signed yet, but they're still open? Okay, that stinks, but Okay, That's not that you failed at closing them. It's just that they're taking a long time. you have to kind of look at the dynamics around it. But if you genuinely have only 20 percent booking and the others have told you no, why? Did you ask? Is it because your pricing was too high? Are they all from the same venue? Are they all from from the knot are they all from a certain listing site, right? Like I want to know why I don't want to just look at it and go, well, that sucks. Like we had a bad booking month. but was there anything that caused it? Was there anything that we could look at that would show us a trend? and the same with the high booking months, right? So is there anything that we can look at that would say, tell us why that was a great month. And I think, again, this all goes back Amanda to like, if I have a wedding, every weekend, or even, even if had two weddings a month, I couldn't spend the time doing that. And That's what causes you to stop growing because there's nobody watching the indicators. It's just kind of like, man, that month sucked. Let's move on to the next one. Right? Like, why did that happen? And, and if you have that time set aside and you can really focus on it, it's not hours and hours every month. It's literally, an hour But it's taking the time to do it and have the brain capacity to do it. And what's interesting too is that, you know, when you first start phasing out of doing a lot of weddings, I think there's a little bit of a guilt factor. I don't know if you've felt this yet, Amanda, but like, you're home on a weekend and you've got three team members out doing weddings and you're like, Oh, I feel bad because I feel like I should be out too. And in reality, what you're doing You need to understand, which then you can help your team understand, is that if you are out on a weekend and you're trash on Monday, and like your brain, you know, we're all in wedding hangover, you go straight into working the next wedding. No one's focused on the growth of the business, which no one's going to have a job in three years. Right? So my team protected me so much because they like, no, we totally understand. We don't want you at weddings because we want you focused on making sure we all have jobs, right? Like we we like working here. We like the flexibility of it. So I think that that's one thing you just have to really understand is that your role is just different now. And it's just as, it's just as busy. It's just not chaos busy. more like you have a purpose for each minute in your day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Figueredo:

So, okay, any, advice for someone like me you know, you're just getting out of doing more weddings, still have weddings on your plate, building the team, what would you give your younger self advice in, this kind of phase of business?

Brandee Gaar:

I think the biggest piece of advice I would say is what is it that you are wanting from your business? Right? Like what is it that you want? And I think Amanda, you've made it pretty clear, especially recently, which is why we're doing this podcast that you're like, I, I want to be able to start focusing on an additional revenue stream. And what is it that Day of Diva can start to do next? Like, what is it that we can do? And to be able to do that, you're really ready to start building out this strategic team that can kind of run without you, which is really, really exciting. And so I would say, Keep your eye on that prize because you kind of have to say, okay, if I want to do No weddings, right? By let's say 18 months from now, what would that mean? We booked so far out that that means you've got to start training your brain today. Like, if this doesn't meet the minimum that we've set for me to take a wedding, then I say no, like it's okay to say no, or it's okay to say my team member will be the one handling that because if you're wishy washy on it, you're going to cave and then you're, you're always going to have too many weddings to accomplish what you want to accomplish in your business. be laser focused on what that means. Let's set a date for it too. Like, is it 18 months from now? Is it two years from now? And let's start working backwards from there. what do we need to have in place by this time next year? What do we need to have in place by, you know, quarter two, by tomorrow? Like, what are the things that have to get put in place so that we're moving towards that goal? And I think it's also really important. I would say to somebody that's in your place is to make sure that your team knows what that goal is. Because one of the things that was really interesting for me is when I started coaching, I don't think I did an amazing job right away. Now I started coaching because of COVID. So it was kind of just like mass chaos, to be honest. So I think my team was just like keeping up with whatever I needed them to do. I don't think I did an amazing job At first of explaining to them what it could mean for our business and how I was able to then create, you know, we were able to start offering health benefits. We were able to start offering much larger salaries because I was able to pull some of my salary then from the coaching business. So we were able to really create some great careers for them within the business and, and offer them bigger opportunities. But for that to happen, they had protect. me from taking weddings or from, getting sucked back into like client issues, you know, like can, can this be handled without me or do you really need me to get involved in this? Right. And so sharing with them that kind of, you know, not every detail we're not going to share with them the P and L by any means, we are sharing like your three year vision. Like what does that look like? And I also, in the beginning, I bonused my blush team off of also our coaching sales, because. The more they could keep me out of blush, dealing with things for blush, I could then grow the coaching side. And so it fair that, you know, the company as a whole was making that revenue. that was something that was really important to me in the beginning as well. So I would say, make sure that they kind of know what it is that you're doing, and you're not just like disappearing from business and like checked out.

Amanda Figueredo:

Yes. Okay. That's good. Nice.

Brandee Gaar:

So, what do you feel like, Amanda, is your next big step? Like, how are you, what, I guess, what caused this kind of questions to come up? What do you think is your big next goal?

Amanda Figueredo:

Yeah, I think, I like to focus on like short term and long term. That's why I kind of asked you these questions are like, What are the possibilities? Like where do I to be in revenue to remove myself and focus on something else? if it's wedding based, amazing. Maybe it's, another business venture as well. but I think for me it's just like building up the team I'd personally like to be doing more rentals. I there's a market for it here and having it under our umbrella as a planner is really appealing to clients. so I'd love to be able to focus on that as well and just kind of get the framework for it so I can see where it's going and have a member manage it and then I've always been a person that has had so many different like jobs And and things like that So whether you know my husband and I go into another business like you guys have in terms of like coaching or you know Something else. I don't really know but that's kind of long term what I'm anticipating.

Brandee Gaar:

Yeah. I love that. Just having that space to be able to create that. we never want to think about the exit plan from our business, but that is a big piece of it. Right. Because, you know, one of the things that I learned for sure the hard way was that, you know, selling a service based business is not that easy and you really got to remove yourself from it completely for it to be something that somebody else can come in and say, Oh, yeah. I can buy this because I don't need her, you know, or I don't need him. It runs on its own without the owner, right? And so I think that that's a really big piece of it too. If you ever want to get out of the business or start a completely different business, um, you know, one of the things that I've loved about bringing Sophia on has been, you know, it almost seems like the only exit strategy is either closing or selling in the wedding industry. And You know, I think it's been really fun to be able to share a lot more about my journey of having brought Sophia on to say, I still own the business, but I'm not actively running it. And so it's been really interesting to kind of navigate that. A lot of people in the business world do that where the original owner kind of becomes almost just, just the owner. Like they're the operator anymore. And so I think that that's certainly a possibility as well, but um, yeah, I love being able to kind of. Share how this is all shaking out. And I'm excited to see you, Amanda, kind of take this next step because you have grown so much over the last two years.

Amanda Figueredo:

And when, when you're talking about the numbers it's just, it's so amazing. Like what your numbers can tell you. Like, I think even looking at, you know, the budget I did three years ago and looking at, okay, well, these are the trends, this is what's happening. And then at the end of the year being like, wow, we exceeded that is like, it's crazy to look at that and be like, wow, this is how much we've done in revenue. Like. You just starting with you three years ago. I feel like that just, it seems like it's so far away, but now like, I'm here.

Brandee Gaar:

that's right. I know. And you're like, wow, I can do this. Like this is going to be so crazy. So yeah, I'm excited. I think you, it's always fun to work with you because you take the numbers so to heart and you put them into action, which is such a massive piece of growing. Right. So I loved that we did this interview, Amanda, thank you so much for coming on and interviewing me and, um, getting this out into everybody's ears who are interested in kind of knowing how to do it too. And I'm excited to watch you grow.

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