Pricing For New Wedding Planners

Inside This Episode:
1:20 - What I charged for my first 3 weddings
3:29 - The problem with the industry standard
4:40 - The system I have used in 13+ new locations, with new planners for pricing
9:30 - A message for planners across the country

Read The Post: https://www.chanceycharmweddings.com/pricing-for-new-wedding-planners/

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Transcript

 Hi, friend. Welcome. My name is Sarah. I'm the founder behind Chancey Charm. We're a destination wedding planning company with planners located across the US and in Europe. We have served over 800 happy clients. We've been published over 200 times, and I'm just really honored that you're here. Whether you're tuning in via podcast, YouTube, you're reading a blog.

I'm just glad you're here. I'm really excited to share the content that I'm gonna be talking about today because I think that it's something that came up in my Facebook group and I thought, wow, this is something that I have taught my team, but I don't know that I've ever taught it publicly, but it's really, really close to my heart.

It's not gonna be popular with every planner out there. I'm gonna be honest. It's a little controversial. That's what happened in Facebook. We kind of started realizing. Oh wow. People feel really differently about this and how I'm gonna approach this is gonna be different than how someone else is gonna approach.

It doesn't mean that one of us is right and one of us is wrong. It's just a difference of opinion and a difference in approach as a new planner. And so I thought it would be fun to hop on. And share how I'm feeling about this topic and the topic is pricing for new planners. So in full transparency, when I was a new planner for my first couple of weddings, I charged only $300.

Now would I charge $300 today? I hope and pray I would not . Were those weddings still a win for me, 150% because I was looking at those weddings as so much more than just cash in the bank. I was getting experience. I was getting. Client reviews. I was getting vendor reviews. I was getting images from my website.

I was getting things moving and growing. I was meeting new vendors. I mean, it was really thrilling and honestly, even though it was a lot of hard work, I think I worked over 16 hours for one of those weddings.  again, you know it, wedding planning can be the school of hard knocks sometimes, because essentially, You start out and you're like, I'll do anything for anyone at any time,

At least that's how I was. I'm also a people pleaser. So, um, and then you kind of start saying, okay, it's not sustainable for me to do X, Y, Z, and you kind of start to. To grow. I mean, even for me with contracts, I just, in the beginning I was like, I can make my own contracts. Like what? No, I can't make my own contracts, but it took me falling on my face to realize, and, and that's maybe that's a personality thing.

I think there are other planners out there that they're so calculated and they've gotten so much experience and they've got all their ducks in a row before they do anything. That is not my personality. I'm not sure I would have the business. I have  if I was like that. I'm kind of just like, let's go for it and then we'll learn lessons along the way.

That's my personality. So, um, again, I charged really low, so I just want you to know if you're, you know, tuning in. But there is no, this is a judgment free zone, um, for you to actually share what you're charging, what's going on with. . Um, so there's a lot of planners out there and they're kind of basically un they're pushing on new planners.

Um, the idea that you should be charging, you know, the industry standard in your area. But the problem with that, for myself, especially as a new planner and for many planners out there, is that you might not feel like your services are worth the industry standard yet, because you're still learning. , and I mean, that's a real thing, right?

I think anybody in any profession charges more the longer that they've been doing, and that's not true for everybody. But the, the longer you've been in a job, the more you're gonna get paid, the more you're gonna charge. And so that was the mindset I took along with just all the other things I really needed out of the weddings I was doing.

I think those things were more valuable to me than the monetary value. Just getting weddings on the books and when you're new and people know that, my clients knew that you just kind of, you need to assess that when you're charging them. Um, and so that's kind of the way I went at it, was. Hey, you know, some of these were friends.

I'm new. Um, yeah, just charge, you know, pay me this or whatever. And, um, cuz it was more about the experience. So that's kind of where I'm coming from. But I did wanna share something that I use. I, I've launched a lot of locations over 13 locations with new planners. Um, most of them, you know, really didn't have.

In the beginning now we really only partners partner with planners who do have experience. However, in the early days of Chancey charm, um, I was training. New planners in new locations. And actually that's how the academy came to be because I was creating all of this content for these planners to train them.

And then it kind of, the light bulb went off like, maybe I should be sharing this with other planners. So, um, one of the things that I taught some of my planners who were having a hard time booking, so you know a lot about sales is confidence. It is. Um, there are some people who can just start and from day one,  industry standard.

And for them, I applaud them, . Um, but a lot of people struggle and I had a lot of planners that I mentored that really struggled with booking clients and we were getting leads, but they were having a hard time booking them. And so, um, a lot of them were getting pushback, um, on pricing and stuff from these leads.

Or they were being told that they went, the lead went with someone else who had lower pricing. . And so we started thinking through this and I kind of came up with a formula, and this is just for day of. This is not for full planning cuz everyone's full planning packages are different. The amount of time that they're gonna spend is different.

So that's a whole nother beast. But for day of coordination, I estimated that you're gonna spend about 30 hours working for that client. And really that's. So you're gonna spend 30 hours working for that client. Let's say that you have a job, um, at Chick-fil-A . I don't know anybody who had a job at Chick-fil-A when they were starting their business.

But yes, that is what I did. I was doing marketing and events for Chick-fil-A and I was getting paid a really low hourly rate. It's kind of cringey now. I look back and. Yeah, so anyways, that's a whole nother story for another day. But I took that hourly rate and I, I challenged my planner at a planner specific location who was really struggling.

And I said, okay, you're gonna take 30 hours and you're gonna take your hourly rate that you're getting paid right now in your job. She had an hourly job. Um, if you're a salary, you kind of figure out like how much an hour you're getting paid, yada, yada.  and I said, if you can do 30 times that number, then taking a wedding is still a win for you because you're not going backwards, you're not making less money than you are at your current job.

You're making the same amount of money. Or, hey, let's kick it up a notch and add two a $2 an hour, you're gonna make more money. Doing this wedding than you do in your current job. So that was kind of fun. And that was kind of a new way to look at what do I really need to make, because a lot of people who are going into wedding planning, it's not like they're making gangbuster money somewhere else.

Um, and they have a pretty low hourly rate. It's a pretty low bar to start. With that day of coordination rate. And then yes, you start building up, you start making more because you know, maybe you're in a job where they collect taxes for you, you've gotta pay taxes now as a business owner and that kind of thing.

So it's a really great starting point, and I think it's a really. Just real way to communicate value even to clients, um, in terms of, you know, this is what my hourly rate is and I'm gonna spend 30 hours on your wedding. You know, maybe that's something you even tell them so that they understand. , you know where you're coming from.

Cause I think when it's broken down hourly too, that can really kind of help them understand, you know, why you're charging what you're charging. Especially when you're trying to get out of the gate and get rolling. And so my 2 cents to new planners who are trying to price out their first day of coordination is to use that formula 30 times your hourly, hourly rate, whatever that is.

Whatever you feel like, man, this, this amount of money per hour is worth it for.  and you can make that your day of coordination price. And then yes, you continue to raise that, you continue to move toward the industry standard as you gain experience, as you gain reviews, as you gain vendor connections, as you gain a portfolio, you have a better site, you better social media, um, presence, those things can help you start to raise your price towards the industry.

And again, I know there's a lot of planners out there that don't like this advice because they say, well, this is going to devalue wedding planning in our market if you are gonna charge that low amount. But my challenge to those planners, if you're one of those planners, you're listening to this podcast or this watch this YouTube video, and you're just like raging right now because you're like, this girl is just telling people to not charge anything for.

The clients who are looking for a deal from a new planner are not your target client. They're not your target client as an experienced planner. So I just wanna encourage you with that. These are not. They're not taking competition away from you. These clients that I'm talking about, that these planners are gonna be booking, are looking for a deal that's below your level of experience and what you deserve to get paid for that experience.

And there's plenty of weddings that are happening out there for everybody. And so I just wanna encourage you with that and I wanna encourage you to encourage new planners to just get that experience, get out there and be happy that they're charging anything. I've heard planners say that they don't, they didn't charge anything their first year and they did seven weddings to get a portfolio.

I mean, honestly. If that's what they wanna do, kudos to them for getting out there and getting it done and getting it rolling. Um, so I hope and pray that this is an encouragement to some. I apologize for those. I'm offending, but I feel like it's a really great formula that's worked well for my team to get us rolling in some of our new locations where now yes, we are definitely charging the industry standard and so just wanted to hop on, share my experience, share my perspective, and I'm rooting for you friend.