Episode 7 - How to Build a Wedding Business that Puts Family First | Becca Pountney

Is it possible to grow a profitable wedding business without sacrificing your family?

In this inspiring episode, I chat with Becca Pountney, UK-based wedding marketing expert and podcast host, about how she built a successful business around her family — not in spite of it.

Becca shares what it’s really like to be a mom in the wedding industry, why setting boundaries is non-negotiable, and how she helps wedding pros grow with strategy instead of burnout.

💬 In this episode:

• Building a flexible wedding business that fits your life
• Why showing up imperfectly is part of the process
• The best marketing tips for overwhelmed vendors
• How to use automation and visibility to reclaim your time

Whether you’re a planner, photographer, florist, or just feeling stretched thin, Becca’s advice will remind you that growth doesn’t have to come at the cost of motherhood.

🔗 Follow @beccapountney on Instagram and visit beccapountney.com for wedding marketing tips, tools, and courses.

🎧 Subscribe to Wedding Industry Mama for honest conversations about motherhood, marketing, and building a sustainable business in the wedding world.

Whether you’re a mompreneur, wedding pro, or just feeling overwhelmed by the juggle—this one’s for you.

Today's Sponsor: Green Aisle - A Platform for Modern Sustainable Weddings - Join the movement at https://green-aisle.com

Wedding Industry Mama Coloring Book: https://www.lulu.com/shop/meredith-kerr/wedding-industry-mama-a-coloring-book/paperback/product-9597z66.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Digital Version: https://payhip.com/b/bfFmX

Free email template on telling your brides you're pregnant: http://eepurl.com/jhJCTg

Transcript

Hi, Becca. Welcome. Thank you for joining me on your USA tour. 

Thank you so much. It's a brilliant to be here. I absolutely love that we can talk to each other from across the other side of the world. So yeah, I love having American guests on my podcast. I love being on American podcast too, so thank you for having me.

Of course! So I've done some research, but for those of us that don't know you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

So my name's Becca Ney, as we said, and I'm based here in the uk.

I'm known as the UK's leading wedding industry marketing expert, which means I help businesses in the UK and further afield all around the world with their marketing. Now, my background before that way back was in television and radio marketing, so that's what my degree was in. That's where I worked. And then when I had children, I knew that I didn't wanna work in those industries anymore because they are not conducive.

To having a child, long hours in television, crazy short contracts, and so I knew I needed to do something different. So when I had my first child back in 2013, which feels like a long time ago now, I gave up my career as it was and started a wedding videography business. Fast forward a couple of years, we moved across the UK to a different place.

I started a networking group to try and meet suppliers to try and grow my videography business. But what happened very fast is I was helping them with their marketing. 'cause that was what my background was, and so I was giving them advice and chatting to them about marketing. Then I started giving some talks to them about marketing.

To cut a long story short, in 2016, I decided to close my videography business entirely, and so for the last almost decade, I've been helping wedding businesses here and afar with their marketing, understanding how to grow their business because I understand that a lot of people in the creative industries are amazing at what they do.

Being a florist, being a cake maker. They're not necessarily great at the business side of things. And so for me, I can't make a cake and I cannot arrange a flower display, but I can help people with marketing. So that is a short potted history of where I came from and what I do now. 

Yeah. Oh, that's so cool.

So how long were you in the videography space then? Ultimately? So it was three years, then 2013 to 2016.  

Yeah, so I had a videography business for three years, but it was a different kind of videography business. And I know we're gonna get into this more around the episode, but because I started it when I had my first baby, I also didn't wanna be leaving the house very often.

So I set up a videography business with a difference, which was all the rage back then. It's probably a bit outdated now, but I actually shipped. The physical video cameras to people's homes, their friends and family filmed the weddings themselves, like a home video footage. They then shipped the camera back to me and I would sit late at night when my baby was asleep and edit them a version of their wedding video.

So it was a lower cost way to do a wedding video for them. But it suited me and my lifestyle at the time because I had the skills to edit the video, but I didn't have the time to go out to the weddings when I had this tiny baby at home. 

Oh my gosh. Wow. That's a cool, I've never heard of that concept.

So was it all a rage back in 2013 in England because it. I have never heard about it here.  

Yeah, it really was. And now when I look back, it's so outdated. 'cause I literally sent this huge crate to people and it's not even that long ago. But now people wouldn't dream about doing that because they have such great camera quality on their phones.

So I'm sure businesses still exist today where people capture the footage on their phones and then it's still edited together. But it was before phone cameras even then were good enough. To create a wedding video. And so yeah, it was popular, it was successful and it was how I ended up falling, into the wedding industry in the first place.

Yeah, that's so cool. 'cause I do think that maybe. Not, like you said, a version of it might be coming back just because we have content creators that are going huge here. Are you have content creators over there too? Yeah. So I mean I think that's a version of that just because they use their phones to do it.

But man, if they're listening, I wonder if any of 'em have thought about saying, Hey, just send me your footage. But that part of the reason they're hiring them is 'cause they don't wanna be dealing with it. But I suppose if you had a friend or family, I dunno the whole . Vintage thing is obviously coming back right now with the point and shoot cameras, things like that.

Who knows? Never say never. It might come right back. So yeah. So then tell how, then I know  you work the hours so that you could handle your baby. Tell me about how. The mental load was the stress, all of that going into completely starting a business, literally at the same time you had a baby, were you pregnant?

What? Like how, tell me the timeline there. What happened? 

Looking back again, it is absolutely insane, but you do what you wanna do at the time, and I was working really hard, so I was used to working really hard in the television and radio industry. But I think for me, the desire that I had, that I wanted to stay at home.

With my baby made me work probably too hard whilst I first had him because I could see the longer term, bigger picture goal. So I knew from the moment I had children in an ideal world, if I possibly could. I always wanted to be there to drop them off and pick them up from school because that's what my mom did for me.

And I know that's not always possible for everyone, but that was  my dream. That's where I wanted to get to. And so I could see from the moment that I thought about having a baby and then had him. If I wanna be able to do that, the only way I'm really gonna be able to do that is either to get a job in a school, which I definitely don't wanna do, or try and grow my own business.

Now, I remember that first year because I was part of one of these baby groups, we call them NCT out here, where you basically meet up with people who have a baby in the same couple of weeks with you, and you all become friends and you do classes together. And I remember that first year was so incredibly difficult because they were all on maternity leave and so they were spending time with their babies and getting paid.

And not working. Whereas I was hustling trying to start a business doing all of those things whilst having this tiny baby. However, I also really vividly remember after that first nine months, 'cause here in the UK we're very fortunate. We get nine months of maternity leave before we have to go back to work.

I remember after that first nine months, they all then had to return to work and suddenly I looked like the one who had the better situation because although they had that first year where they could be there all the time and get paid, all of a sudden they were panicking, having to put their kids in childcare, not knowing how they were gonna do it, how they were gonna go back to work.

And now I, yeah, I was still hustling hard, but I was around all of the time and I was working in the evenings. I was working at nap times, I was working at the weekends, getting stuff done, but without having to go to an office. 

Yeah, I think I've talked about this with other moms on the podcast is just, as great as sometimes it might feel, or as hard as it may feel to be an entrepreneur, sometimes I'd still always rather be an entrepreneur than do that just because, I think my deepest root in it is just that I have control over.

What I make, what my hours are, all of that. And no one can fire me. Clients can fire you, but you can't, you're never gonna have. Everything disappear overnight the way you could in a job situation. And then to your point,  the whole maternity leave situation, here we get, it's laughable.

We get six weeks. That's pretty par for the course. So the nine month thing, I'm just, I'm so jealous because I honest I've said this and more power to you 'cause you did it anyway. But I've said to my husband before and I don't mean this to diminish. Women after birth. But there is definitely a brain shift that happens and they call it mom brain, right?

Where you start forgetting everything. I told my husband before, I'm like, they shouldn't make women that have just had a baby have to deal with anything tax related or  finance related for a full year because like my brain just does not work for that first year. I have 

three. How many do you have?

I have two children. They're now 11 and eight, so yeah they're a bit older now, but yeah, I have two. But yeah, you're right. It's hard. It's a hard phase and again, I look back now and I think. I don't know how I did that, but there's something inside of you that just does it in the moment. I do think in some ways I was in a fortunate position.

You may not see it that way, but because I started the business with the child, I basically always had this mantra that I was gonna grow my business with my children. And I do think that is very different to people who have a full-time photography business, for example, and then suddenly have a baby.

Then they've gotta try and work out how to deal with it. So I do look back and I think, yes, starting a business is hard, but I did have that control to grow it slowly rather than suddenly having 50 clients to service and a baby. 

That's so interesting that you say that because I do think that there is different, there is a different, like what?

A different, mindset that happens when you are looking at potentially having your business crash or that. You shouldn't even be thinking that. 'cause I I, my last episode was with  Courtney Wolf, and she specializes in mindset and basically she said who says that you can't.

Double your income during maternity leave. I, yeah, I really it's so interesting you say that. I guess I've never really put it all together that that was the difference because I had my baby in 20, my first baby in 2020. And it was a doozy, but we also only had three weddings.

But then 2021 was insane and I was pregnant with my second in 2021. Yeah. By the time I had my second, that's when it really started hitting me. 'cause it was like, there's no pandemic anymore. Now you have two babies. You're not gonna sleep all day. You're not gonna sleep all night, here you go and your bus, your business has to keep running. But if you're in survival mode and you're, right from the get go yep, I'm growing this business while I have a baby. It's just my life. It's how it is. I'm gonna do it then. Yeah. That's 

crazy., yeah, and it's definitely a mindset thing as well, because what is our definition of success?

Because I think sometimes we see what we have and we wanna keep what we have at that same level, whilst also trying to grow a human child, which is really impossible. That's an impossible task. And actually, you could look at my life situation and go you had this really successful television career that you then gave it all up to have nothing to start a business.

But I don't see it that way. I just saw it as a pivot. It was like, I don't want the success of that anymore because that is impossible to maintain. And for me success at that point was having the time. Yes, of course. Having a lot less money in that moment. Of course, I was fortunate to have a husband as well that could help and support me, my income was dropping.

I was you could say that was not success, but for me that was success. 

Yeah, I'm sure. You're going from working however many hours, 90 hours a week to suddenly. Doing 20 hours a week with a newborn probably felt like a vacation anyway. That is great about, yeah, that's great. That you had that your group to foil the results and be able to see okay, this is actually gonna turn out better in the long run.

So how so your children are 11 and eight now, you said how. Tell me how you do this all, like how do you manage work-life balance? How do teach your children work-life balance? How do you put them first? Because I know you said you can still put your family first even while running a wedding business.

Please tell me all the things because that's how I feel like I wanna put my family first, but I also constantly have in the back of my mind stuff going on.

Okay, so the first thing is that from the moment I started my business, that's always been my mantra, family first. That's why I decided to grow my business with my children.

I could have gone all in a hundred hours a week, still at the start, and had a hugely more successful business quicker, but I think it would've impacted my family. And so I've always had peace with the fact that for a while the business will. Be less than it could be, but it can grow over time. And so I think, I see my children's lives in two stages.

There's the, before they were five and they went to full-time school, and then there's the, now when they're in full-time school and they're two totally different stages. So for the first five years of their lives, when the childcare was limited, they went to some nursery. I kept my business at a level that I could cope with.

Even though there was scope to do more, which meant saying no to some opportunities, which meant saying no to some financial things and having to be lower, which meant saying no to some holidays and choosing to work less. So that was a conscious choice that I made. It wasn't because it couldn't be more successful, it's 'cause I chose to keep it at a level like I cope with.

I also knew once they went to school, then my hours were gonna be more set and I could start to grow it because all of a sudden it was easier. So the moment they were both in school, I now had the hours between nine and three 30, Monday to Friday every day to go all in and to hustle hard. And I could see now is the time when I can travel abroad more for work because it's.

Easier for my husband to be at home with kids who are at school all day than it was when they were under five. So I do think you have to look at the stage you are in and understand that it changes over time in terms of the boundaries thing, it's a constant battle, right? None of us ever get it right.

For me, I'm very set on those working hours. I work between nine and, 3 30, and my clients know that. So I will say to them, I'm stopping work at three o'clock. So if you email me between three and 5:00 PM I know it's your office hours. You won't get me though. That's not my office hours. So being really clear with the boundaries.

And then I will sometimes work in an evening, but I protect that time for me between three 30 and seven 30 in an evening because that's the time my children are home from school, that I can give them the full attention, that I can take them to their clubs, to their classes, to their swimming lessons, and then once they're in bed, if I choose to.

I can work. So like last night, I had to do my podcast interviews with people in the us. Typically the time between half past three and half past seven is actually the perfect time to talk to someone in the US because of the time difference. But that's not the time that's perfect for me. So I would rather stay up until nine, 10 o'clock at night and have those conversations to protect the hours with my children.

So again, it's all conscious choices and boundaries, but. It is possible. You just have to be more careful with your time and you have to be really clear on those boundaries. 

Yeah. I think that you're working with businesses primarily, right? So those are your clients. Okay. Yeah. I think a lot of people in the wedding industry do have not that they have, couples that don't respect time.

Do you have any advice for people. On, maintaining that work life balance even though you've got couples texting or calling you or, other than obviously just nope, those are my hours. I. I don't know. Do you have any kind of suggestions for how to do that? 

Yeah, absolutely.

Loads. Because I think it's a mindset shift again that we think that's okay, Becca. 'cause you work with business owners and couples won't respect my time. I understand that, but trust me, if you allow them to, business owners don't respect your time either. And so actually it's a false economy that we have to be available to our couples 24 7.

We absolutely don't. So a couple of things that I teach my wedding business owners. Number one, use automations and technology where you can. So for example, I tell my clients that you need to be responding to inquiries within the first 30 minutes of them inquiry. Now that's basically an impossible task if you're a child swimming lesson, a ballet lesson, something like that.

And so I say to them, automate that. Set it up on your website so that when someone inquires, they immediately get something from you. Immediately while you are at the ballet lesson, swimming lesson, it doesn't matter. Yes, you can then follow up with a more personalized email. In the moment when you are back working, but have it so that you're still doing what your client wants, which is giving them an immediate response, but it's not involving you.

So that's one thing. Use technology to your advantage. The second thing is I think clients will respect your boundaries if you set it up from day one. So I have clients that have agreements that couples sign when they book them, that lays out, these are the hours that I work, these are the hours when you can contact me.

If you contact me outside of those hours, that's absolutely fine, but I won't reply until. X, X. Now, that's down to us as the business owner to keep to those rules. Because if those same couples want to book an a, an appointment at the dentist, for example, they can't just call the dentist at 2:00 AM and say, I want to talk to them.

Now, they know that they have to wait till the dentist office opens at nine o'clock the next morning. So we have to train our couples that we're the same thing. We, they can't expect to contact us at 2:00 AM and we'll reply to them. Now, the problem is what we do is we do reply to them, and so then they keep on doing it.

So it is down to us having our own self-control and also not having the belief that if we don't reply to that question there and then that they'll hate us and they won't wanna work with us again. Because if we train them to be good clients, then actually they will respect the boundaries. 

Yeah. I think being, open and transparent on that, definitely helps everything. And I used to have more automated responses, but then I also felt like I was losing the personal touch. It's been difficult because also nap time shifts, so I don't know. You did, so you didn't have full-time childcare 

when they were little.

No, I did crazy working During the nap time or, yeah, during whatever time I could grab. I worked a lot of late nights, I'll tell you that for free. I did not have any full-time childcare when they were small. Once they got to about two, three, I used to put them they used to go to preschool, as we call it here.

So smaller nurse for maybe three or four hours a day. 

Yeah, we had preschool too. Yeah. But yeah, they, same thing. I, so I, right now it's 6:00 AM When people are listening to this, who knows what time it is. But this is literally between 6:00 AM because I'm not a morning person. I don't know if you saw the meme that was like a morning person, or sorry, parents are morning people.

Or becoming a morning person with children is like being chased by a bear makes you a runner. That's. That's how I feel. I'm not a morning person. My only chance though, especially for the podcast, because otherwise I'd have little feet coming up to me constantly saying mommy mommy.

Is between six and six and eight. They wake up at eight and they go to bed at eight and that usually nap time is between one and three or one and four. But like then. If they don't do that. Yeah, like it's never reliable. But you know what, you said something though that made me wanna shift gears only for a second, just because you do handle the marketing thing.

And this has been a hot debate lately. On TikTok is. These couples that do not wanna see, or they're frustrated that there's no pricing on wedding industry websites. And but you said like you wouldn't call a dentist and in the middle of the night, so here's my question for you, just as a marketer, what's your thoughts on this whole no pricing thing or, and being upset about it?

Because. I view it. My husband's a builder. He would never put his pricing on there either because it's a custom project. There's no and I kind of view weddings the same way. Like it, it's a custom. Project for the most part. So I don't know how many hours you need. I'm not gonna put my we my prices on because it's different.

Depends on where your wedding is. Like when it is, if it's 4th of July, I am probably gonna charge you a lot more than I would another day, i'm sorry I'm rambling, but what's your thought? What are your thoughts on that? And I know it's not exactly mom related, but I'm just so curious because it's such a hot topic lately.

It is mom related as well because it comes back to not wasting your time, but you are not gonna like my view because I am of the opinion that you should be as transparent and pro as possible and have as many price points as possible. We know that this generation of couples want to have an idea.

We know that they are different to the previous generation so that they are doing more research before they reach out to us. So my belief is that you need some level of pricing on your website, but what that looks like depends on your. Individual business, your individual situation. I always say the minimum someone should have on their website, and this is particularly as a mom or a parent, is a from price.

Because what you wanna do is get rid of people who are wasting your time. And as a parent, you are very precious about your time. I don't wanna speak to anyone who's gonna waste my time. And so if your minimum price you will leave your house for is a thousand dollars, $2,000, $3,000, I don't mind what it is.

At least have that on there so that immediately you filter out anyone that hasn't got a minimum of that amount to spend and you're not spending your time going back and forward on email with them. You're not spending your time getting on a call with them because actually we don't have the time to give so.

Yes. For me, the more transparent you are with the prices, the better. You just have to look at how the world's going. If you look at something like Uber, so back in the day, we'd get in a taxi in London, we'd get in a black cab. We wouldn't know how much it was gonna cost till we get got out the other end.

Now no one will get in a black cab. They go on the Uber app. They can see exactly to the pence how much every different kind of car is gonna cost them to get from A to B. And they can make an informed decision about what car they want to go in. So if that's the way society's going, we have to understand that's the way it's going for our businesses as well.

And so if we give them nothing, they will either avoid us, they'll waste our time because they will make their own judgment about how much you cost, and they will make that judgment based on your marketing. So some people will look at your marketing and think they're too expensive, even if you're not. Or they may look at you and think they're too cheap.

Even though you're not. So that's a long-winded answer because it's something I'm quite passionate about, but I think, oh, it's great. I'm so glad to at least have a from price to save your own sanity in your own time. And yes, you may see a slower leveling of inquiries if you put that quite high, but actually it's not about the amount of inquiries, it's about the amount of conversion.

So if your conversion rate still says the same or goes up, it doesn't matter if your inquiry level goes down. 

Okay. All right. Yeah, that's a good point. Especially because anybody that is inquiring already has that budget because they know they, yeah. Wow. Okay. Big shift for me there. I'm like, I have never put my pricing on.

I went back and forth actually right at the beginning because I also felt like. People, the constant is , pricing is your branding. So if somebody looks at your website and thinks you're less, but you're more, for whatever reason, they may have subjective views, then you might, get a name in the industry as like not being as expensive, even though you are. 'cause no one knows what you're telling couples in terms of dealing with planners and stuff like that. Yeah done pricing is now on my website. 

And at least a prom price, right? You don't have to put everything on because we know that things change.

I haven't actually have a whole episode on my own podcast that came out a few weeks ago. If anyone wants to listen to it about different ways to add pricing to your website, that will suit your business and your business model. Also, if it's not broken, don't fix it, right? So if you, if not having your pricing on has worked for you and is continuing to work for you.

Then it doesn't mean you need to suddenly shift it, but if you're seeing that inquiries are dropping or you're getting more time wasters or you know you feel it, then that's a signal to me that you do need to do something about it. Because I think there's a stat that I share on stage, sometimes it's something like, on average a couple will look at seven different photographers to for their wedding, and they only contact three.

So my question is, how often are you falling into the four? That you dunno about because they're looking like they're looking at four other people that they never even reach out to. And so one of the reasons that you could fall into that four is 'cause they have no idea how much you cost or they make the wrong subjective choice.

I have another thing in a slide that I do on stage sometimes where I show this ice cream on screen and I say to people to guess how much the ice cream costs. Then the ice cream actually costs something like $5,000. 'cause it's covered in Gold Leaf and it's the most expensive ice cream in the world. But people make a subject subjective.

Guess that it's $10, $20? And so the point is we don't actually know. We don't know how much it costs even by seeing the picture. And so let's give people a hint because we don't wanna accidentally order the 5,000 ice cream. 

Oh yeah. Okay. I get it. That makes sense. Are you seeing a shift in general and for Gen Z.

'Cause you're dealing with the clients that are dealing with Gen Z, right? What other kind of shifts are you seeing that kind of maybe clash with, a mother business owner? Just because what I specifically talk about the times, that they are reaching out and everything.

But is there anything else that we should be keeping an eye out for that maybe we should shift in our businesses like preemptively? 

Yeah, so I think the big thing about Gen Z is they're looking for authenticity, which again, I actually think. We can lean into as parents, I think there's a real balance between being authentic and being too much.

So I don't think we need to share everything, the chaos that's going on in our lives, but I do think that we can share the humanness of our experience and the fact that we have children, that kind of thing. We can share it and we don't need to be afraid. Again, there was this kind of thought a few years ago that you had to remain professional and pretend that you didn't have these children in your life.

But I think the wider world shifting and working from home, particularly that generation. They know that they often have a dog in the background or people have kids at home, and so suddenly that perspective shifted. So authenticity is key. Couples wanna see you, your personality. Yes we are right? They wanna get responses from you quick.

They want all the information quick. So again, that's difficult for us as parents. So we need to lean into the technology. We need to lean into putting the information on our website, making it super clear so that they can do all that research. Without bothering us. So by the time they come to us, they're ready to pay for our time.

Yeah. Like we have to be realistic. We have no time. I say this to people all the time. There used to be this guy locally to me and he used to, his big message to wedding business owners was go for random coffees five times a week with influential people. And I did a real pushback against that message.

'cause I was like, as a mom, I don't have time to go to five random coffees with influential people just in case I have to be protective of my time. And so in all aspects of our business we can't just say yes to everything. We need to think right. What is actually gonna work for us in the smallest amount of time?

'cause we don't have much of it. 

Yeah, no. My gosh. This is gold here. I think like keeping up with everybody, I've had this discussion on many of the other podcasts of what your thoughts are interviewing. That's why I started this too, because, I think a big part of it is that.

In the wedding industry, many of us do not share that we have children. And I've said this a million times over on this podcast. So honestly I'm so glad you reached out to me to do the interview because, I don't necessarily know who has kids and who doesn't, and I don't want to offend somebody by reaching out to them.

So if you're listening and you do have kids and you wanna reach out to me, let me know. But yeah, so it's. When I had. My first in 2020, I shared her a lot and I don't know if it was the pandemic or what, but I did feel like my inquiries dropped in 2020.

But I'm pretty sure it was mostly the pandemic. But my husband did say to me at the time, he's are you sharing the baby a little too much? They can't really relate to that. So maybe you shouldn't share the baby anymore. So I'm very, I very rarely share the babies anymore. And I used to, before kids, I used to get on social media all the time.

Have the camera. Face towards me and talk about my life and what I was doing. Right before having a baby, right? I was planning my wedding, I was renovating a condo. So I was basically doing all the things that people getting married do. So I think I connected very well in those years with my couples and then.

2020 had my baby, and then at that point, that's when I started to feel like maybe I'm not connecting as much anymore. So it was like when I had a child. I find it very interesting that you're like, oh, gen Z wants to know that you have children. And, 'cause I just, I've always worried that, now that anytime I share my kids, I get a lot of engagement, but it's not necessarily from.

Brides or from couples reaching out. I know brides is an outdated word, ? Yeah. 

From a marketing perspective, of course we need to resonate with the people, right? And so if there's a lot of people that are getting married and they typically don't have children themselves, they don't wanna hear all about having children all of the time because that's not relevant to them.

But there will be some things in your experience that are a shared experience. So things like, I understand how overwhelming. Life is, I understand how many plates you're trying to juggle. I'm trying to juggle kids. In a business you are trying to juggle full-time work and planning a wedding. I get it. So you are using your personal, authentic experience, but you are putting it in a way that resonates with the problem that they have.

Does that make sense? So you're not just going, I have children all the time, you are thinking about, or what, in my experience is going to actually resonate with them because it's similar. 

Okay. Alright. That makes sense. And then I appreciate you've written a book called. Done is better than perfect.

I feel like that is like the gold standard for moms, for parents, everything. Tell me about that. 

Yeah, so my first wedding business book came out at the end of last year, end of 2024. It's called Done is Better Than Perfect, and then Your Guide to Growing a Successful Wedding Business. And again, it's kind of part of my mantra and I say it to wedding business owners all the time because in particular, we as creatives are perfectionists.

So we wanna do everything perfectly all the time. And actually as a mom,  it is impossible to be perfect all the time. We just have to get things done. And so I started talking about that to my wedding business owners saying, stop making excuses, get it done. Just do it. Stop saying you can't go live to your couples because.

Your house is messy. Stop saying that kids might make a noise in the background, stop making excuses because actually the excuses are just your way of feeling unconfident about doing something is not a real excuse. And so I say to them, just get it done. Done is better than perfect. So if they're taking a quick nap and you've got 30 seconds.

Go outside to a plain brick wall if your house is a mess. And just record your 32nd video there. And then like you don't need to be perfectly made up. You don't need, and you can even say just recording this quick video while the baby's asleep, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it's an authentic message, but it's also helping your couples.

So that was where the heart of done is better than perfect, is now the book itself. Is walking you through every stage of setting up a business through how to get started, how to make sure your website's on brand, how to make sure that your marketing's right, your finances, but it has this running theme throughout that is, business isn't about perfection.

It's about just moving forward and getting stuff done in the best way possible. 

Yeah, that's so cool. I definitely am gonna have to read that. My version of a book, I don't know if you saw, but I made a coloring book for the wedding industry.  

I love it. Yeah. But again I wouldn't have been able to write a book when my kids were under five. And I think that's the thing we, I have to, I keep reminding people of that message is that, whatever stage you're in listening to this, there'll be people listening to this with tiny children.

School-aged children, grownup children. I'm sure there's a whole spectrum, but it's different for everyone. So you can't compare yourself. So if you are listening to this thinking, oh, Becca's written a book and I've got a newborn at home. Obviously I can never have written a book When I had a newborn at home, that would've been crazy, but now they're at school and I have more time.

I can do it. I said to my sister is right in the trenches. She has a 3-year-old and a nine month old, and she messages me when I'm off to Vegas, a wedding, MBA saying, I wish I could do that. I say, Becca, who was in your stage, would've wish she could do that. She couldn't. But there's light at the end of the tunnel because now she can.

So I think it's just important for all of us to not compare ourselves to other people's situations because they're also very different, and especially if the kids are different ages. 

Yeah, for sure.  So  when you are with your children and there's something going on work-wise, are you able to shut it off or how do you deal with that when there's  mentally something looming over you and.

You are in that protected time with your kids and there's something going on. What do you 

suggest for something like that? I've got a lot better at this year than I have done for the last decade. So this year I went on a trip to Disney at Easter with my whole family and.

I really wanted that time to be protective. We were away for three weeks in Florida, and I was like, I need to do something to protect my time with my kids, because I know that even sometimes when I'm present with them, my head is elsewhere and I'm not actually present, or I'm on my phone all the time because it's easy and convenient and I don't want my vacation to be spent on my phone.

And so I made a decision that I was gonna go away and I was gonna put up proper boundaries, which I did. I've tried to keep hold of some of those since Easter. So one of the things I did, which is going to terrify people who are listening, but I actually took my email off my phone and it hasn't gone back on, and that felt like a huge scary leap.

But because I did it to go to Florida and the world didn't end, I was like, I'm gonna try and keep it off for as long as I possibly can. And I cannot tell you it has had zero impact on my business whatsoever. So much of what was coming into my inbox was either pointless or could be dealt with the next day.

It didn't matter. No one has said to me, why didn't you reply to me at four o'clock yesterday? Even if they thought it, they haven't said it. And what's made the biggest shift is what was happening before is I would see the email and even if I didn't read it, or even if I did read it and didn't action it, it was consuming my mind.

Now I don't see it. I'm not thinking about it. So if there is a problem on my email, I won't know about it until I get back to my desk the next day. And again, we have to put it in perspective because we're not saving lives and most questions can wait. There is very little conversation that we need to have a, with a couple on an email that is going to need to be actioned within the next hour, two hours, three hours.

And again, it comes back to saying those boundaries at the beginning. People know that I work. School hours. And so they know that they'll get that. If you are worried about it, you can sit an out of office that says, I'm out of the office, but I will be back with you from 6:00 AM tomorrow, 7:00 AM tomorrow, 8:00 AM tomorrow if it's an emergency contact here.

So you can put a WhatsApp, business, WhatsApp number on or something like that. If you want a way to people to contact you or you just let it be. Because what happens is that they get the email back and they go, okay, I'll hear back from her tomorrow. Yeah. And I do. Okay. 

What about social media? Because a lot of what we do is marketing on social media, and that's one thing I've definitely struggled with as a parent too, is that I want to get myself out there and do, and I know you mentioned the 32nd thing, but it's also, it's a mind thing.

It's if, engagement is at its height right now, like Tuesdays nine to . 11 is like the best time to post a blog post or something like that. That's what I always remember hearing, but that's almost impossible, like nine to 11. I can't be on my phone or on social media,  responding to engagement, responding to comments, that kind of thing.

And I know you have the time now. What do you suggest to people that don't yet have that time but don't want their business to. It's a tank in the meantime. 

So again, it depends on your financial situation. The best thing I've done for myself this year is to outsource my social media. So I've hired my own content creator now, and she comes to my house for three hours.

On a time that's convenient. We film all my content and then for the next month she just does it all and interacts with the comments. Now, not everyone can afford to do that, but if you have a way to afford to do that, then look at it. And the way I did that, this is gonna be my inside tip, is I actually just advertised.

On my local village Facebook page. So I wasn't looking for a super expensive professional content creator. I was just looking for someone younger than me who understood TikTok, who was looking for some extra cash live near me and was able to help me out. So that's what I did. I found wow, incredible person.

And now, and it suits her and what's interesting is she has a newborn baby and she has a toddler, so she is like right in the trenches. But she saw my post and she was in that phase of motherhood has taken away my identity and I want to get back to doing a bit of what I wanna do, but I don't want a job.

She saw my post and saw it was ad hoc and it was a few hours and she could do it in the middle of the night, and so actually it's been a match made in heaven because she's helping me and meaning that I'm not on social media all the time. I can be with my kids and I'm helping her because she's finding herself again and she can work late at night around her kids.

So sometimes it's about finding people that can help you. But it is a reality if you don't have the finances to do that, you are gonna have to put some time into it. And so there are, it may be that you have to spend 10 minutes. On your phone doing some stuff while your kids are there. Just be self controlled with that.

So go, I don't know what your rules are in your house, but I'm gonna put on a show that a 30 minute cartoon, and that is my 30 minutes where I'm gonna sit behind them so that they can't see me just on my phone and they're gonna watch the show for 30 minutes. And for that 30 minutes is when I'm gonna do myself.

And then when the show's over, I'll put the phone away and we'll move on with our day. 

Oh my God. That is, that's great advice. I've never thought to ask someone locally, because you think to yourself , no, I need an actual content creator. But there are tons of high school students even that might know.

Social media better than you do,

yeah, exactly. And also we think we need an expert and there are some amazing experts out there. And I'm not saying that there aren't, but also when we're in our businesses, we just start having to do it ourselves. We are not the expert and yet we do an okay job at it.

So we've just gotta find someone who can do it as good as we can, if not better. 

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, not to knock us like, or ageist wise but the younger generation tends to be able to pick that stuff up faster. And yeah, I tried to take a course on going viral on TikTok, and it's been interesting being more on TikTok lately just because I finally made a TikTok for the. A podcast and I'm just like, wow, this, there's a world out here. I didn't even know because I was stuck in Instagram. I feel like I was frozen in time from like baby number one. So like I'm still in 2020. 2020 is when TikTok took off and I haven't been on it since. It. It's huge over there too, right?

In England. . Yeah, it's absolutely huge. But I also realized that if I was gonna conquer it, I couldn't do it myself because I just don't have the hours. And I think, again, for people listening, you've gotta be realistic with all of this stuff. 'cause there's that pressure to do more. I've gotta be on TikTok, I've gotta be on Instagram, I've gotta be on all of these places.

But actually, you may not be able to be in all those places. So you've either gotta hire someone to do it for you, or if you are unable to do that, I say go back to the drawing board, look at your inquiries and work out where they've actually come from over the last year and double down on what's working rather than trying to spread yourself too thin because otherwise.

You will just have a meltdown and burn out and you won't be a good parent and you won't be a good business owner. So again, is that being realistic and thinking, can I manage to take this on now? Even if the world's telling me I should take this on right now, or actually could my business sustain where it's at the moment and keep ticking on over doing the things I've always done and then as I get more time, I can add more stuff in.

Yeah. In terms of focusing your efforts, do you recommend people. Put advertising dollars into the big sites or is that shifting too? Because I feel like every time I've done that, I have gotten very minimal results back. So it almost feels like there's a big shift 

there going on too. I think,, it's so different for every person.

So if I was doing a one-to-one review with a client, for example, for their marketing, the first thing I would do is sit down with them, find out who they're trying to reach, find out what's been going on over the last year, and look at where their inquiries are coming from. Because often we don't spend enough time looking at our own data.

We just go on what everyone else is telling us to do. So that's the first thing is okay, let's look at it because I have some clients where these. Big directories, make them thousands and thousands, and I have others that it doesn't work for. So that doesn't mean that they either do or don't work.

It just depends on who you are, who your client is, and where your client's hanging out. It depends how much time you're putting into these things, all of that kind of stuff. So I don't think there's a one size fits all. I think you need to look at what's worked in the past and what. What you like doing and see where the synergy is between them.

So for example, I have clients that are really good in person. And so for them, even doing physical wedding shows and going and meeting people in person and doing client meetings, doing networking really works well for them. 'cause that's their zone. I have other clients that are really good at data and SEO and Google ads, and so that's their skillset.

And so they put their time and their money into that. So I think. I know that doesn't answer your question, but you've gotta do a personal reflection on, where are my clients hanging out? Where has worked for me or is continuing to work for me right now, and where do I enjoy or find the least res resistance, spending time?

And how can I utilize those things and do more of them rather than trying to keep adding on top? Because again, as a parent, sometimes you have to be in sustained mode rather than grow mode, depending on your life situation. And if you are already feeling like you can't take on anymore.

Then don't try and take on anymore. You've gotta try and sustain where you are at the moment with the knowledge that if you choose to put more time in, you will be able to grow it in the future. 

Yeah, I think that's been a big theme of this lately too, is just that you're in a season, recognize what season you're in and determine what you wanna do with that season.

Do you wanna change the season? And be at peace with where you are. In life. But I definitely think that's great advice  to definitely dive into your own situation. I know it sounds so simple, but actually I don't know that I've ever thought of that specifically.

You just hear try using this, try doing that and it's a lot of noise and you just, you're trying to figure out what's best for you. But maybe it is just looking  within your own. Data and figuring out what's best for you. I know there has been a shift for me.

I, 'cause I used to get lots and lots from Instagram and now it's been more word of mouth instead of Insta.  So that's why I started dabbling in Tip TikTok too. But I didn't wanna do it like from my photography page. I've only done it from the mom, the Momtographer.

I haven't heard that one in a long time. Did you ever hear that 

one? Momtographer? I used to hear mompreneur a lot,, and some people don't like it. Some people do like it because. I think that's the thing, like the theme of, I'm sure all of your episodes is that everyone's parenting experience is different.

All right? So some people may listen to what I have to say and they think why should we grow our business with our children? We wanna have a big successful six figure business now. And that's an absolutely fine opinion to have. And I have friends who. Who would rather work a lot and then be able to take their kids on these huge holidays than they would do my model.

But I think what you said is you have to have peace with your situation. So going right back to the start, how do you define success? You need to do that internal work yourself. So if you define success as like I did, very simply being able to drop them off and pick them up from school, then you will build your whole life and your whole business around that model.

But it's different for everyone, and there's no right or wrong, there's no right way to be a parent in business. There's no wrong way to be a parent in business. 

Yeah. Have you done any other mompreneur  episodes on your podcast or. 

No, I don't think I've really delved into it, but we should. We should have this conversation over on my podcast as well because I know increasingly as well in my world, more and more people in the industry, 'cause it's so female dominant, are coming up with these struggles and yeah, there's a lot of conversations to be had about it.

That's why I started the podcast. 'cause I just, I was feeling very alone, so I was like, no one talks about being a mom in the wedding industry. Like it's different. It's definitely, I would say a very similar. Mindset to mompreneur, like you said, 'cause you're running your own business.

But I do think that there's a unique scenario in the fact that  dealing with couples and that couples change, , you could be a mompreneur and be dealing with a different client set, but again, I think there's something unique about the wedding industry that's yeah, that the, because it's so female dominated.

There are a lot of moms and we don't talk about it. And that's fine. If you determine what you wanna do. If your clients aren't gonna like it, don't share that you're a mom, fine. But I don't know. I think more people should, 

but, often that's our own mindset, right?

Because we assume that people don't wanna hear about it or. We assume that people will think differently of us because we tell them we're a mom, but we don't always have. Any factual information that backs that up. And so sometimes again, it's our own fear, but it might not be true. I have this thing I say that I heard once at a conference where when people are scared of doing stuff, it's because we say what will they think of us?

And then the question you have to ask yourself is, who's they? Because often they're just a made up person in our head, like it's not reality. And so when we say, oh, we don't wanna tell people I'm a mom because what will our couples think of us? Actually, the reality is they probably won't even care as long as it's not impacting what's happening for their wedding.

Like all they care about, we're selfish people. All they care about is their wedding day. So as long as they know you're gonna show up and do a great job and take great photos, they probably don't care you mom or you're not mom. But there's something about being authentic and just showing up as ourselves rather than trying to pretend that we've got it all together.

That resonates with the next generation. 

Yeah. And so when you were pregnant. Were you still at the TV production part or like how what was that timeline like? 

So my first baby, I was pregnant and then took maternity leave from my radio job. My second baby, I know I was fully self-employed. We joke actually because now my second baby, she's.

Eight. And so a lot of my business owners that I've worked with in the wedding industry have literally watched her grow up. So I still held networking meetings with them in our local area when I was nine months pregnant. So they saw me hugely pregnant, and I took her along in a carrier to my first networking event two months after she was born.

And they still see her grow up now, and she's eight years old, and they've enjoyed that journey. So I don't know, it's. It's been a journey. It evolves, it changes, but I don't hide away from the fact that I'm a parent. I'm proud of it and I don't talk about it all the time, but when it's relevant or I see that there's something, there's some synergy there.

It's no secret. 

Yeah, no. I mean to also, the reason I was asking too is because when you're pregnant at your company, was there a difference in mind? A difference in. The they or what you were worried about, right? Like 'cause you were pregnant, so you had a company that knew you were pregnant and like how did they feel having you be pregnant versus when you're a business owner, it's only the clients and those are the they, you know what I mean?

The clients are the they, but  when you're in a corporation, I didn't even have that experience 'cause I was not. I was already self-employed by the time I even had my first baby. So did you, between the two pregnancies, did you feel any kind of difference there? 

I don't think so particularly. It's going way back now, thinking about working at the radio.

I think there is something in television and radio, which is when you have kids, you're basically gonna lose your job often, which is why I wanted to get outta it. My gosh. Particularly in the TV industry, because you're on short term contracts and so there is no oh, we can do shared working, like it's just very cut through. Now, that's illegal. They can't say that, but it's an unwritten rule, which is why in these industries, so many of the high up people are still men, because it's really difficult to be a parent with children and not work all of the hours unless you wanna work all of the hours of the day.

They're just not flexible in that way. And so I think for me, I was so clear in my mind that I didn't wanna do that. That I didn't really care what they thought about me being pregnant, because in my head. It was going, I wasn't gonna matter. I was gone. You're like, I'm out 

here.

This is fine. Wow. Okay. That's crazy. I didn't know that. That's absolutely nuts. But thanks for sharing the difference there. But yeah, 'cause I just feel like there, that's what's in our heads is the, what we think is a stigma about being pregnant or having a baby. Is that. Suddenly we can't do as much.

And so I think that might be, you know why people get so afraid. I've talked about this on podcast before too, but like when I was first pregnant, I wound up having a miscarriage, but my first thought I wasn't happy about. Pregnancy because I was due right during one of my biggest weddings, and I was panicked.

Instead, I was like, what am I gonna do? My whole business that I've been working on is just gonna tank. But we don't have to have that thought. My mom immediately was like, you'll be fine. And she was probably right. I probably would've been fine. It's unfortunate that I had that reaction and I do feel that it's because.

Of the stigma that's surrounding it,

yeah. Anyway, yes it's hard as well. And I think for me, my whole perspective on everything changed when I had children. And again, that might not be the same for everyone, but for me, things that felt important before became. Unimportant.

It's if one of my kids ended up in the hospital today, every work meeting I had in my diary today would feel so unimportant in that moment. Right now it might feel important, but for me, as soon as something happens, if so, it, they become unimportant and I think. We put so much pressure on ourselves and we build all of these different things up and they all feel so important.

But for me, there's that thing when they say, when you look back on your life, what will your be memories be? Will it be the time you spent with your kids, or will it be the time you spent at work? We all know the answer to that question. And so I think it's just keeping that perspective of, is this thing actually as important as I think it is, or have I just built it up bigger in my mind?

And will the world fall apart? Probably not. Will my business fall apart? Probably not. May I lose a few clients? Maybe do I care? Probably not. Because if they are clients that really hate the fact that I have kids that much, then they're probably not people I wanna work with anyway. 

Yeah. That makes total sense.

Thank you for your perspective. One thing I do like to ask everybody at the end is if they have a couple moms that they wanna take, give a shout out to in the wedding industry, that they feel like they're doing a great job. And this isn't to say that anybody else isn't doing a great job.

It's just, people that you have seen them, been doing a great job in the wedding industry as a mom. 

Wow. I don't know if I've got anyone specific, but I'm gonna tell you a story about someone that I do admire and I wish I had their business name to hand, so I can't give you that. But I'm just gonna tell you the story because it resonated with me recently.

And they are a wedding planner and I was holding this big fancy event in London and I'd invited them as a planner. To come to it. And they were brave enough to send me an email to say, I still really wanna come to your event, but because I've got a newborn, I would have to bring them with me. I'm assuming that means I wouldn't be welcome.

And I read that email, I thought was, you're so brave even sending this email. 'cause you could have just gone, I won't come. And so I wrote back and I said. Of course, your baby is welcome. It's not gonna be running around at my event,  it's gonna be strapped to you. And it took me back to that moment where I, too was bringing my own baby, strapped to me to my own events, and I said.

Of course you can bring your baby. Thank you for being brave enough to even say, can I do this? And yes you can. And she came to my event as a planner with this baby strapped to her chest. And you know what? She was one of the most popular people in the room because everyone wanted to chatter and everyone saw the baby.

So I'm gonna give her a shout out for being so brave to send me that message and to still turn up. Come, yeah, come to the event network. And bring her newborn baby with her. 

Oh my gosh. So I don't think people realize that before you have a baby, the newborn stage is. The best time because you can you can still do everything.

It's just that you have the baby strapped to you. So, I just had a high school reunion and one of my friends was walking around with her newborn baby, strapped to her, I think six, five weeks old, six weeks old. I can't remember, but I'm like. Whoa. you're here, that's a commitment, but you did it.

And yeah it's the easiest time actually. When, and when you look back, you're thinking , oh, I thought newborn stage was gonna be the hardest. It might be the easiest.  you never know. But but yeah. So just to wrap up then, can you let everyone know how they can get in touch with you?

All those social media 

channels? Yeah, absolutely. So reach out to me at Becca Poney on all the different social media. Instagram is probably where I personally spend the most amount of time, although I'm everywhere. And do send me a message if anything's resonated with you or anything I've talked about resonated with you.

It's me answering my dms. So do drop me a message and if you wanna listen to my podcast to get different marketing advice for your wedding business, there's over 170 episodes. It's called Wedding Pros, who are Ready to Grow. 

Oh, awesome. Thank you Becca. This has been so helpful. Thank you so much.