Turning Your Wedding Passion into a Profitable Business with Tammy Johnston

Tired of being a "glorified hobbyist" in the wedding industry? In this eye-opening conversation with business coach Tammy Johnston, we uncover the crucial mindset shifts and practical strategies needed to transform your wedding business from struggling side-hustle to profitable enterprise.

Tammy pulls no punches as she dissects the common pitfalls trapping so many talented wedding professionals. The harsh truth? Being excellent at photography, planning, or floristry isn't enough – true success requires mastering the eight fundamental pillars of business that apply across all industries. Most wedding pros are spending 85-90% of their time perfecting their craft when successful business owners allocate just 10-15% to service delivery.

We dive deep into pricing strategies that account for your true costs (hint: you're probably drastically undercharging), marketing approaches that don't rely solely on social media, and system development that frees you from being a "professional plate spinner." Tammy's practical advice on maintaining client relationships long after the wedding day reveals untapped revenue potential through referrals that most pros completely miss.

Perhaps most valuable is her guidance on team building – focusing not on when to hire but who to hire to complement your weaknesses rather than duplicate your strengths. Her three actionable steps provide an immediate roadmap for wedding professionals ready to elevate their business acumen and profitability.

Whether you're just starting your wedding business journey or looking to break through a growth plateau, this episode delivers the straight talk and strategic insight needed to stop being a "volunteer in the wrong line" and start building the profitable business you deserve. Connect with Tammy at KSABusiness.ca and take the first step toward transforming your passion into sustainable profit.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Business Coaching
• 3:05 Common Misconceptions for Wedding Pros
• 6:41 The Eight Pillars of Business Success
• 14:02 Pricing Strategies That Actually Work
• 20:09 Marketing Beyond Social Media
• 29:25 Building Teams and Systems
• 32:34 Three Actionable Steps for Success
• 37:59 Final Advice and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Wedding Empires podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:31

My name is Ben and my name is Jack Bowie and we're here today to dive into the game-changing topic for wedding professionals on business coaching. So if you're kind of new to the wedding business or you're at the point where you want to take your business to the next level and you're working hard, but you really haven't reached that point where you're taking that hobby and making it into your full-time gig, well, our guest, tammy Johnston, is going to be an excellent help for you today. She's a seasoned business coach. She's got 20 years of experience plus and she's also worked with a lot of wedding professionals and helped them build sustainable and profitable businesses. So today we're going to hear from her on how to make key mindset shifts, financial strategies and some practical steps to help you move that passion into profit. So, tammy, why don't we kick off with, I guess, a little bit about your background and how you became a business coach for wedding professionals?

Speaker 3: 1:27

Well, I work with a lot of wedding professionals and people in all sorts of varied industries and products and services all around the world, and I actually sort of fell into it because my background is actually in financial services.

Speaker 3: 1:42

I've been doing that for over 32 years now and when I was pushed to start my own business, one of the things I started working a lot with were self-employed small business owners.

Speaker 3: 1:52

One of the things I started working a lot with were self-employed small business owners and as I was getting into the nitty gritty of their finances, one of the things that I was discovering was they needed a lot of help with their business because they were technicians. They were technically very good at providing their product or service, but they lacked the business knowledge and they were having massive problems. So I started helping them out with their business because I had a greedy, motivated self-interest, because broke people can't afford investments or insurance, which is the stuff I got paid on so I started helping them and they started seeing very positive results very quickly and started sending me more of their compatriots and colleagues and things like that and very quickly I'm going okay, I need to better leverage this and I started teaching small business and then in 2019, I split my business in two. So I still have my personal financial planning company, where I look after my existing clients, and then I have KSA, where I focus on the small business coaching.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Wow, so the business side of things is a minefield, tammy. It is absolutely incredible. So what can you tell us? What are the some of the common misconceptions that wedding professionals have when they're starting a business?

Speaker 3: 3:02

They have a lot of the exact same misconceptions that most people start off with, which is as long as I'm really good at what I do, that's all I need. Everybody will come because I take great pictures, or I plan great events, or, and they go, my work will speak for itself. Well, most of the time. Well, you're competing with all sorts of other people. They don't even know you exist and they don't have. They're thinking as technicians, they're not thinking as business people, and then they're wondering why it doesn't work.

Speaker 1: 3:34

Yeah, I completely agree with that. I love the technician term. Yeah, when I first started, I had someone said to me you want to be a photographer in business as opposed to a photographer in business.

Speaker 3: 3:44

So yeah, I work with a lot of photographers. In fact, I spoke at the Professional Photographers of Canada years ago and I'm going. Are you a hobbyist that's paying an awful lot for your hobby, or are you actually making money doing it?

Speaker 1: 3:57

Yeah, great question.

Speaker 2: 3:58

And so why do you think wedding businesses struggle to sort of get beyond that glorified hobbyist phase Like what's the missing step that needs to happen?

Speaker 3: 4:09

Well, it depends on what the wedding professional is, because everybody goes into business with strengths and they go in with weaknesses and a lot of the stuff that actually causes the biggest problem for most people are all the things that they don't even know, that they need to know like they're going. Yes, I take great pictures and, like I said, we'll get back to the technician part, but they don't know anything about marketing. Uh, they don't know about pricing. Most business people wedding professionals or whatever are getting their business advice from their broke-ass friends and family who have never set foot in the arena and have no idea what they're talking about. And they might have the best of intentions, or they might be actually getting advice from people who do not want to see them succeed. And then they're wondering why it's not working. They don't have any systems put together.

Speaker 3: 4:59

I've I've worked with photographers that did an absolutely fabulous job, trying to get them to finish the job or invoice me good, freaking luck. And then they're wondering why they don't, why they're not in business. They have no idea how to structure their day. They don't know how to talk with clients. They're going I just want, I just want to take my pictures and do really good or whatever. There's so many different aspects. They think, as if I'm doing good in business, I'm spending 80 to 90% of my time practicing my craft. No, if you're lucky, you're spending 10, maybe 15% actually practicing your craft. All the rest of your time, effort and energy goes into everything else. It's like that's one day. I remember my wedding. It was a beautiful day. It was one day and it was months of work beforehand and stuff afterwards. And that's the same with the wedding perfector. But they're not thinking about it. They're thinking about it as one day.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Yeah, tammy, I love how passionate you are about it. I can connect with you on that level because you have that passion for this and I've got that passion for teaching photography. And when you see so much in people but they're not living up to that, you're like I could. Just I want to show you so much. So I know it's hard to break things down, but if you were going to give someone a handful of key fundamental skills that every wedding business owner must know, what would those key skills be?

Speaker 3: 6:21

How many keys do you want? Give me a handful Keys to the kingdom. So all successful business doesn't matter what the industry is. If it's product service, it doesn't matter where in the world it is. Business is business, is business. The only thing that changes are exact legal things and exact counting and tax stuff. But all successful businesses share the exact same eight things. So, first off, mindset and habits. When you are an entrepreneur, you are running a small business you are thinking very, very differently than when you are an employee. Everything starts and stops with you. You're in charge of everything, which is a blessing and a curse, especially in the beginning, because most people have no idea what they need to be doing. So they do what's fun and easy and what they think they need to do, and are missing out on the other things. And then habits. How are you structuring your day? How are you controlling yourself? How are you dealing with the itty bitty, shitty committee that's in your head getting in the way of everything?

Speaker 1: 7:18

I love it. I love it. You're talking my language, Tammy Love it.

Speaker 3: 7:24

I would love to claim credit for that one, but I have a lovely client and that's what she called. I used to call mine Ahmed the internal terrorist, but I love the itty bitty shitty.

Speaker 1: 7:32

Ahmed, and I know exactly who you're talking about. Tammy, you are my hero of the day already. Carry on, please Carry on.

Speaker 3: 7:39

Now we're all awake.

Speaker 3: 7:41

Your vision mission values Like what type of business are you building? Where are you wanting to go? How are you going to be making your decisions? Because, as business people, we are going to be facing difficult decisions. So do you know what your compass is telling you? So, knowing those things, marketing.

Speaker 3: 8:00

You absolutely have to be marketing consistently, day in, day out, and there's 27 different ways to market your business. You do not need to do all of them. In fact, I don't do all of them. You need to find like a handful of things that work for you and your business and your personality type and do them consistently and plan that you are going to be in business 10 years from now, because a lot of people will not do business with you until you have been in the game for at least three years, because they want to make sure that number one, you're serious, that you're not just a glorified hobbyist and that they can count on you to be in the game as a serious business person. So you have to plan and act that way. My personal record for having somebody meet me to becoming a client is 14 years and I've had everything in between. Like they want to see that you're going to be around and it takes time. Some people will come in quickly, some people won't, but you have to be seen on a regular basis. So what is your marketing plan and how are you implementing it? Advisory team.

Speaker 3: 9:07

Like I said, most people are getting their business advice from their broke ass friends and family who've never set foot in the arena. Bad advice is the worst advice you can get, and a lot of your free stuff is and no matter how smart you are, our world is becoming more and more complicated. In the horror stories I could tell you about people who have gotten bad advice and what it has done to their business and their lives Horrifying. You need to have the right people on your team. Financials that's the number one place where business people abdicate.

Speaker 3: 9:36

I don't even say delegate, they abdicate it. They're going. Unless there's millions coming in, I don't want to look at it. I'll talk to my bookkeeper and my accountant when I have to sign off to pay my taxes, but other than that, stay away from me. Well, when they're doing that, they're missing all of the beautiful stories that their numbers can tell them to help them serve more people, do it better and make more money doing it, because if you are not making money. You are a volunteer in the wrong line Taking away my question.

Speaker 2: 10:03

I was going to say a lot of us in this wedding business we aren't good at the numbers, we aren't good at the bookkeeping that needs to be done. It's definitely a common issue, isn't it, ben? I mean, you know we're so good at the creative side and and and that leans us into quite good usually at instagram and some of the marketing and things like that, because we've got that eye, the analytical. I really struggle with that. Like that's not my well, like you said, most people, people avoid like.

Speaker 3: 10:31

I've worked with tons of people in the wedding industry. I've got comics as clients and artists and stuff and everybody goes. They think it's complicated. If you can count, add, subtract, multiply and divide, that's all you need. And when I start going through and explaining people and they start seeing, like you said, your numbers can tell you beautiful, incredible stories and they start seeing that then they get excited about it. Because when you're familiar with your numbers and you're not afraid of them and you are regularly looking at them and knowing what you're looking at, you can serve more people, you can do a better job serving them, you can make more money. And then people get really excited about it.

Speaker 3: 11:06

And, like I said, if you're not making money, you are not in business. You're a glorified volunteer that's paying because you are going to have cost of business and systems. No systems, no business. It's just a job that owns you. And there's so many people that are especially technically brilliant. Everything's in their head. Well, if everything's in your head, you can never take a day off, you can't delegate, you can't do anything because everything's in your head and you, you, when you start getting busy, you'll start missing things. I call people professional plate spinners because they're running around and as long as they can, they're going crazy.

Speaker 2: 11:38

they can keep their plates up and as soon as they go and the plates are crashing and what happens when you, when you want to scale, and it's all in your head. I mean, you know what's in your head. It's impossible.

Speaker 3: 11:51

And you can't hire assistants because everything's in your head and there's different ways of getting it out, and systems are an ever living and evolving thing. I've been running my own business for 24 years now and I've always constantly upgrading my systems and adding different ones and retiring other ones, because one of the many reasons why I love business is if you're bored, you're doing it wrong, like there's always stuff to learn and it's magical. And then the last two are cashflow and profit. You have to have both. Cashflow is like the blood. If there's no blood, there's no business. You have to have the cash coming in because you are always going to have the regular bills, even if nothing else. You have to eat and you need to have a roof over your head, so you need to have that money coming in. And then profit Profit is what you have after all.

Speaker 3: 12:43

The bills are paid and a lot of people, especially in the beginning, do not understand how much it actually costs them to run a business and they're grossly underpricing themselves and they're wondering why they're not getting better clients, because better clients know that they're underpricing and they're not going to be getting the quality and stuff and the cheap. Clients are always looking for the best deal, and they're always going to nickel and dime you down. And then you're going. Yes, after I paid all my bills and I've been working my butt off, there's nothing left. What am I doing wrong? So having all eight of those foundational pieces drastically improves your chances of success. Missing one or more of them, the faster and the harder you are going to crash.

Speaker 1: 13:26

I think it's my question now, but I've been so captivated by what you've said I have no idea where I'm at it was a bit pricing, I think yeah, there's a, so let's. So let's talk about pricing, tammy, um, how can we, how can a wedding professional set up profitable rates without undervaluing themselves, making sure they're covering cost of goods, making sure they're covering cost of goods, making sure that they're covering all of their taxes and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 3: 13:54

Well, number one you need to know what all your costs actually are. So I'll give a perfect example from right. When I first started with the business coaching and helping clients and I was working with a guy in the trades he did construction stuff and I said, well, tell me, how are you pricing yourself out, what are your profit margins? And I said, well, tell me, like, how are you pricing yourself out, like, what are your profit margins? And he says, oh, that's easy. We've got these three things that we do in this. The one business, that thing, line of business we love to do, that's great. We make about 35% on that, that's absolutely wonderful. The other one we probably make about 20%. And then there's this and it kind of brings people in, but we're only making 10% on it. And I said, okay, well, that's wonderful, how are you pricing that? What are the things that are going into it? Well, he says, well, I price out the materials, I price out the truck and I price out the hourly rate for my guys to do it. And I said, okay, and then when I actually went through with him and going okay, well, you've got your WCB costs, you've got your insurance costs, you've got your office costs. You've got your accounting, you've got this, that and everything else.

Speaker 3: 14:56

When we actually went through and figured out the business that he thought he was doing 35%, he was making about 12. The one he thought he was making 20% he was taking like a 5% hit and the one the job that he didn't want to do was costing him 25% because about the total cost of his business over the years. So we had to fix things right away. And there's so many people that make the same thing. They're going.

Speaker 3: 15:20

It's so many hours for me to be at the shoot and there's so many hours for me to be doing the editing or whatever, and that's the only thing that they're looking at. They're forgetting about what's your cost of insurance, what's your cost of your marketing, what's your cost of everything else, what's your cost of everything else, what's the cost for all the consultations that you're doing with the bride and groom and the family beforehand, and they're going okay. This is why I have no money at the end of the day, because or I'm making like $2 an hour I thought it was make, I thought I was making at least 20, but no, when I actually factor everything else in, I'm only making two.

Speaker 1: 15:51

So so it's that old pricing equation, then of you know sales too. So it's that old pricing equation, then of you know sales, minus cost of goods, minus expenses, gives you, gives you your net, and then you know, we work down from there.

Speaker 3: 16:01

And that's the basic. That's the absolute most basic stuff. There's ways of how you are positioning yourself, how your marketing is put together, how you are interacting with the clients, where you can actually charge more, make more money and have much happier people. But it's it's knowing those things, because it's not the cost of goods sold and the time and stuff is just the barest, barest minimum. It's all the other things that come into it as well, but it's learning about the business side of it, not just point and click or any of the other basic, invisible things.

Speaker 2: 16:38

Can I ask a question around like systems and processes, if you're in the most wedding, like basic wedding business, what are the essential processes and systems to run the business? What do you think they consist of? I mean just as categories, even you know, like marketing yep and year-round consistent marketing crm.

Speaker 3: 17:00

So your customer resource management, so relationship management. So how are you making sure that every interaction that you're having with potential customers, past customers, they're all having the same? Because this is another thing that comes back to when things are in your head, you think you've done things you haven't, and if you've got two brides that are talking to one another, well, how come she gave you all of this stuff and I only got half of it, with the contacts and the communications or what? Because you didn't have your system. So, having those systems, having your systems for looking over your financials and figuring out and and taking the simple things like taking a look at your calendar. Like we all know, you guys are in Australia, so I'm not exactly sure when your wedding busy season is, but up here in North America we're just starting to get into ours, because it's like the end of May, june, july and August are our busy seasons. Well, how much of a lead time do you need to have in order to turn those people into clients? Like, if you're not marketing for wedding season until May, you've already missed everybody. So, having those marketing systems in the CRM, looking at your financials and making sure that you've got your stuff put together on a regular basis.

Speaker 3: 18:13

And when you have downtime, you've got your stuff put together on a regular basis. And when you have downtime, what are you doing with that time? Like here, I don't teach December, I don't teach July and I don't teach August, why there's no point. I can have classes full and then people are coming in from out of town and they drop out. So that I make sure that I am doing very different things in my downtimes, where a lot of people it's feast and famine, feast and famine. So that I make sure that I am doing very different things in my down times, where a lot of people it's feast and famine, feast and famine. When they're busy and the season is, they will go flat out and then they're wasting their downtime and then they're wondering why they have to work so hard to get going again.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Yeah, I know that I personally learned that the hard way in terms of marketing, because we've got a one to two year cycle here and I realized that the years that I was peddling like crazy underneath the water and not doing any marketing for the following year meant that I hurt that the next year. So, yeah, that's a really important one. And I think just on that in regards to marketing, can you give us some effective marketing strategies that kind of don't rely on social media, because I know that I've had the same situation where I've had a Facebook ads account blocked for months while I fought to get it going again, and if you're solely relying on social media and something like that happens and you get hacked or something like that, all of a sudden you're gone. So have you got some other sort of marketing strategies for us?

Speaker 3: 19:36

I'm huge on that one and I have to work with so many, especially on the creative side. Social media is where you can find people, but if that is your only way of connecting with them, like you said, you could be hacked, you could be locked out, you could piss off somebody and matter whatever, and you could lose everything. I've seen it happen. So one of the things that you need to be doing with your social media and we have to have social media like that is our world. When I started my business, social media didn't exist. I think MySpace started up shortly thereafter, but that was it. The job of social media is to move them over to your website and be gathering that information. But I'm old school Things that I have done podcasting works wonderfully for me. Speaking community trade shows, like everybody wants to go to the wedding show, but then you're competing with everybody when, if you're going to the smaller shows the things that people wouldn't think about you're going to stand out an awful lot more.

Speaker 3: 20:32

Networking is a huge one one, and networking with other people in your industry that are not your direct competition. So when I like one of the things I had to train people when I was speaking for the professional photographers of canada is and going. There's a lot of photographers in here who hate doing weddings. They would rather pull out all their hair than photograph a wedding, and there was a few people there that loved weddings. Well, you guys need to exchange information. So if somebody goes to the person who does all the product photos and they get asked well, can you do this wedding? No, they don't want to do the wedding, they're not going to do a good job of it either, but they can pass off the name to somebody who is going to do a fabulous job and love doing it.

Speaker 3: 21:19

So networking is big one and maintaining relationships with your existing customers Are you ever speaking to them? Are you keeping in touch with them after you've done all the stuff for their wedding? Because a lot of people forget about that, like you think. Well, they should only be getting married once, and hopefully they are. But how many other people do they know in their world that are getting married Family, friends, all this stuff? When I got married, we were going to a couple of weddings every year for a few years because that was our circle. So if you go, and most of our wedding photography and other vendors that we shared were all the same people, because we talked oh yeah, they did a great job for so-and-so's wedding. We want them for us. So how are you building and maintaining those relationships? Because, if you're thinking of it as a one-off, you have left so much money on the table and you're going to work way better than you have to what are some easy ways to do that?

Speaker 2: 22:16

Obviously, you could send them an email on their anniversary or something. Have you had any other ideas?

Speaker 3: 22:22

I would say don't do email Old-fashioned physical cards that go in the snail mail, because email gets lost. How many emails do you get a day? I get probably two to three hundred emails a day and even if it's once, I don't have the capacity a lot of the time to even look at it. But what do you get in the mail? Typically bills or junk.

Speaker 3: 22:43

If you're actually getting something positive, like you could send a card that you've made that has a picture of their wedding on it and going, wishing you the best of luck and or put something in there, but it makes them Hopefully they're still together. Hopefully they're still together. If not, here's a divorce law or here's the other one. Can you help them with their divorce party or the next wedding? Done that, done that. Having the personal relationship is what matters. We do business with people we know, like and trust and well, they tested you enough to do their wedding and you're not looking for more business from them. But you're reminding them and they will talk to people, especially if you did a good job of what you did at the wedding and people will ask who did that for you and I literally had people go. Yeah, they were great. I can't even remember who they were and they don't remember because after the wedding was done, they were never heard from again.

Speaker 2: 25:02

It's a really good point. It's a really simple, but we so forget that you know our business.

Speaker 3: 25:08

It does not need to be complicated, it doesn't need to be expensive. But I have. I have found because I'm big on the snail mail and it works wonders because especially now like we get our bills on email and things like this, so we get next to nothing in the mail and I have people post all over social media when they're getting their cards and stuff for me and I'm going I don't, that's fabulous for me and it's just that's who I am.

Speaker 2: 25:55

Yeah there are some little hacks like send out cards, that that service where ben even even in like go high level obviously we've been talking a lot about lately, where you can add into an automation a step where a physical postcard gets sent to somebody via mail, um, and it's just like one of those like text message services, in that you know it'll take the money that you've got on file or it'll send the card that you stipulate. You might have created something custom, sometimes in handwriting, and everything.

Speaker 3: 26:26

Oh, you can do everything. I do send out cards for years and I'm old, so I do everything on my computer because, but you can, can? I've had people do it literally from the app on their phone and it is done before they've walked out the door.

Speaker 1: 26:39

Yeah, what's that? Send out cards. Send out cards. So you two know all of the little.

Speaker 2: 26:46

Yeah, I'm in the manual world, so, okay, that's cool, I'm gonna check it out but you know, by all means, if you want to go to Woolworths and buy a pack of 100 cards, like you can still do that, you can go on Canva and create a few of your own cards and just have them printed.

Speaker 3: 27:00

That way I've done that for when I'm doing bulk things or whatever. Find a few things that work for you. But the big thing is, how are you building and maintaining relationships? Because if you're thinking of it, as soon as everything is done, for my part in the wedding, I'm done with those people you are. You're shooting yourself in the foot. You're shooting yourself in the foot because you have no idea how many other people they know and if they like you and they remember you, they will send you business.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Yeah, we spoke about systems in terms of, you know, of building systems for long-term growth and that sort of stuff. So I guess another aspect to that growth is teams. So when do you think should a wedding business or a wedding entrepreneur think about expanding and bringing on a team?

Speaker 3: 27:48

Okay, that's a very loaded question. It's a great question, but it's kind of a loaded question because it's not so much when it's who are they bringing on for the team, which I would say would be a bigger thing. If you're starting to get enough going and if you've got the right people on your team, you could bring them on sooner and expand an awful lot faster. One of the biggest problems I find when people are looking at expanding their team and bringing people on is they are hiring people that are just like them and then they're wondering why the stuff that they don't like doing, the stuff that they're not good at doing, isn't getting done. So you want to be taking a look at okay, what am I really good at, what do I love doing and where am I weak and where do I need help, and then finding the right people to fill in those gaps. Because if you have a bunch of people that they just absolutely love taking all the photos, for example, and you don't have anybody that wants to help out with the systems or look after the financials and the invoicing and doing the editing and stuff, well, that stuff isn't going to be done. So I always have my people put together an org chart and at the beginning, when you're a solopreneur, your name is going to be in every single spot.

Speaker 3: 29:05

But if you think about what are all the different aspects of my business? Who's looking after the marketing? Who's looking after the financials? Who's actually interacting with the client? Who's making sure that they're getting all of their proper communications? Who's making sure that we're getting paid at the right time and things are being looked after? Look at all the different aspects and then who can properly fill in those jobs and then you can really get your business going so good. If you're going I need, I need to be booked solid out before that I bring anybody on well, then you're getting in your way, you're slowing yourself down. But if you're higher, if you're bringing in the wrong people, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the people, but they're not the right people for the help that you need. That's going to cause you a lot of problems too.

Speaker 1: 29:54

Yeah, so I'm tipping. There's probably a few people out there that have never heard of an org chart. I'm sure that we all have, so can you just explain very briefly what is an org chart?

Speaker 3: 30:04

An organizational chart is. Look of it as a flow chart for your business and at the top we have the CEO and president, who's making all the decisions and all businesses have. You have marketing, you have admin and you have operations. Operations is like the delivery, and so who's going to be doing the marketing? What are the jobs that need to be done for marketing, for the financials, putting together your systems, all of those things. And then operations who's actually like the work that's being done for the client and what are all? I always say think of it in job descriptions. So, as you're going through and getting ready to be working with the wedding, what are all the little jobs and stuff that needs to be done from beginning to end? And then, where are you strong, when are you weak, and get help for the areas that you're weak on, Roger.

Speaker 2: 30:57

Tammy, I'd like to know three easy, actionable steps that wedding business owners could learn from you today to, I think, get a better handle on the business side of things.

Speaker 3: 31:09

Well, I would say the first thing, start looking at it as a business. Start building your business skills. There's great podcasts, there's great books that you can read or listen to on audio. You can take different courses. Work with a good business coach that can help you where you are, because there's lots of business coaches out there and they're wonderful, but a lot of them are specialists and if you don't have the basic foundational pieces first, the specialist is just going to help you crash faster. So that would be the first one.

Speaker 3: 31:44

Dedicate regular time, at least weekly, to working on your business. Think about, okay, what is something that I can systematize? What is something I can learn about how to better look at my financials? What is a networking event where I can go and I can meet other business people and start talking about business and learning about business, but making a regular, consistent habit of learning about the actual business stuff, because so many people they want to learn all of the creative and the actual business stuff. Because so many people they want to learn all of the creative and all of that stuff. Like I just keep chuckling.

Speaker 3: 32:22

Like I said when I spoke at the convention for the professional photographers of Canada, they had. I think it was like close to 50 different educational sessions and there was only me and one other person. There was two people that were talking about business everybody. Everything else was like photoshop and lighting and posing and and lenses and all of that stuff, which is absolutely, but I'm going. I think you guys missed the professional part, because a lot of these people are not making any money, like it's a glorified hobby for them the one that succeed and stay in the stay in the business are the ones that are actually learning about business.

Speaker 3: 32:58

I'm not saying don't learn about the technical aspects, but if you're not learning about the business, you're missing an awful lot Good point.

Speaker 1: 33:06

That's one thing, tammy, that I've been jumping up and down about and screaming about for the last few years with the photography event in Las Vegas. There's so much creativity there. It's all about shooting and posing and lighting and all the other stuff, but there's nothing about there's some things, but it's very limited about how to give people a better lifestyle and how to help them make money and how to help them, you know, sustain their lifestyle and keep going and be successful. Like it's, there's two totally different planes and both are very different, but one sort of tends to be lost quite a lot.

Speaker 3: 33:39

But people don't want to talk about, especially money. Money's a dirty subject. Money's a more taboo subject than sex. And I'm going, and this is why you're broke.

Speaker 1: 33:46

There's a, there's a few directions. I can go there, but I'm going to leave that. We are G right in here.

Speaker 3: 33:51

It's a family show and then the last one is make sure that you are surrounding yourself with more business people, more positive people, like one of the biggest things that I tell people. When you go into business, your circle of friends is going to change and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your other, your old circle. But you need to be spending time with people that you can talk to, that you can feel safe with, that you can share ideas with, that you can learn with and employees. If you start trying to talk about your business with something, they're going to look at you like you're speaking Klingon, like they don't get it. It is a completely different mindset. But when you're spending time with other business people, you start learning that okay, I'm not the only person that's having trouble with this and you get to learn. Okay, they've been through this difficulty and this is how they got over it and you can share ideas and all of this stuff. And that is and it also helps you get through the days where you're going. Am I completely out of my mind, like, why am I doing this? It's so stressful. Why can't I just go back and get myself a job and then I wouldn't have to worry about all of this stuff. You need to be changing who you are spending your time with.

Speaker 3: 34:59

When I first started my business, all of my social circle were all in place and they're still wonderful. People love them to pieces. Within the first two years, all of the people that I spent I socialized with, that I spent my time with, were all other business people, because I learned very quickly I couldn't talk to my friends and I love my husband. I've been happily married. We're coming up on 28 years here. I cannot share my bad days with him because it will just stress him out, which stresses me out. But I have a few girlfriends that are also entrepreneurs that I can go. I call them my business 911. And we go. We phone one another up going do you have a few minutes for me to vent? Okay, yes, and then we can talk one another through things.

Speaker 1: 35:40

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:40

So those, those would be the three things.

Speaker 1: 35:42

Love that. What do you think, Jack?

Speaker 2: 35:44

I'm waiting for your last famous question.

Speaker 1: 35:48

So, tammy, I have a question that I ask all of our guests. If, if you were to walk outside today and run into an 18 year old version of yourself, what advice would you give yourself about life, business, success, knowing what you know now?

Speaker 3: 36:00

Well, that's a good one, Because one of the main reasons why I focus on the new businesses is because I go.

Speaker 3: 36:05

If I could go back and talk to me one year before I started my business, here's what I would do. Going back 18 would be a little bit more, but I would say I would have made a lot more conscious choice on my friendships and gotten myself around a lot more business people and stuff back then, because I have learned so much from the different networking groups and things that I have been a part of since I became a business owner and just learning from them and the conversations and just listening. That would be the number one thing that I would say to me, because I was always like I've been studying money, business and success since I was seven years old, like I'm a nerd. This is what I, I love what I do, but my, my social circle were all employees until I basically started my business. So I go. I would have said, tammy, you need to start spending like, you need to start going out, networking and spending a lot more time with business people, and that would have made a huge difference in my life.

Speaker 1: 37:04

Yeah, love that.

Speaker 2: 37:05

Great advice. Well, thanks so much, Tammy. It's been a pleasure having you with us. I've certainly learned a lot, and a lot. It's good to talk about stuff that you you know. I'm sure Ben and I've both struggled with a lot of this stuff.

Speaker 3: 37:16

You know that's human, because I didn't have that stuff in school.

Speaker 2: 37:20

I know, I know, but I need, I need to like, not pick, uh like a styling course for my next gap. It probably needs to be a zero accounting course or something which you know it would be very useful and probably more fun than you think.

Speaker 2: 37:35

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, if it's resonated with you guys today and you'd like to connect with Tammy in some way, you can find her website. It's ksabusinessca. You can also find her on LinkedIn, tammy Johnston, and on Instagram, she's ksabusiness is her username. We'll pop all of those in the show notes, though. Thanks so much, tammy. Well, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 38:01

It was a lot of fun chatting with you yeah thank you, tammy, and can I just say I love your passion around this. It really flows through with everything you say. So, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2: 38:11

Awesome, thank you.