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A Wedding Business Podcast - Tips and tricks to, grow and sustain a amazingly successful wedding business in a way that's is fun and gives you tons of freedom.
Welcome everyone to the Wedding Pro Academy Podcast. I'm Nicole, your host. I'm an expert in the wedding industry and I've personally built two 6 figure businesses from the ground up. I am obsessed with building businesses that make lots of money but do so in a way that also create luxurious amounts of freedom. So if you're looking to build, grow, or scale a wedding business in a way that doesn't burn you out, and you'd love some guidance from someone who has done just that, this podcast is for you.
Nicole:Each week I'll cover strategies, tips, tricks that will give you your dream wedding business too. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Let's dive in. Welcome everyone to episode 27. Today I'm gonna do a little bit of a different kind of episode because I am in the thick of summer break with my three kids and they are all at home and I'm also babysitting a dog and there's a lot going on.
Nicole:So yeah, and I don't know if there's any other moms out there, but if you guys are in the thick of it too and you're feeling behind, this episode is for you. So today we're going talk about what to do when you're feeling behind. So does any of this sound familiar? You feel like there's a million things to do and like you can't ever catch up. You feel like you aren't even sure if you're working on the right thing or you're on the right path.
Nicole:You're always questioning yourself and your decisions constantly. You feel behind. Like, you should be better at this by now. You should be further ahead. Maybe you want your own business and you know you want to make a lot of money, but things just aren't happening the way you had hoped.
Nicole:So all of that stuff, all of those feelings, first of all, totally normal. I felt like that when I was in my twenties. I felt like that when I was in my thirties. I felt like that when I was first starting to build my wedding business. And to be totally honest, I still feel like that a lot of times right now.
Nicole:And I have two successful, you know, 6 figure businesses, and I'm in my forties. So why do we feel like this? Well, thing is social pressure. You feel like there's all these milestones that you need to achieve. Milestones like you should graduate at 18.
Nicole:You should have a good job by 22. You should be making blank amount of money by 24. When I was first graduated from college, I was like, I gotta make $50,000 by the time I'm 24 or else I'm a loser. And that number maybe has changed now if you're in your twenties. There's also like these types of milestones that you hear or, like, maybe you feel that you should get married by 25, buy a house by 25, have kids by 30.
Nicole:Because if you want more than one, then it's going to be considered a high risk geriatric pregnancy at 35, so you gotta get started by like 28, right? And look at all this stuff stacked on within like five, ten years. There's so much pressure to get all of this stuff done. And during this period, you also don't even know who you are. You don't know what you like.
Nicole:You don't know what you really wanna do. You're totally still just figuring it out. And that's okay. So, what happens when you start off doing one thing and choosing a career at random because you had to choose a career when you were, you know, 18, just graduating from high school. You choose a career kind of at random because you think that's what you're going to like and then you decide to change paths because you realize you want to start your own business.
Nicole:You want to start a wedding business. So then you got to start all over again and you feel behind. You leave this cushy job and start a business but you are essentially starting from scratch having to learn something totally new, totally different, something with a hundred different skill sets, and you are expecting yourself to be making good money, the same money you are making at a corporate job, because everyone else you see on TikTok is having ten k months and you're not. So, let's bury all that right now because there is an insane amount of pressure on you already. Pressure you're putting on yourself because of all these expectations from, you know, family, from friends, from what you see online.
Nicole:And that is, like, too much. And feeling behind doesn't need to be one more thing. It isn't helpful, especially if you are trying to start a business. And also, it just isn't true. So, here's my story for context because I think hearing this might make you feel a little bit better.
Nicole:So, I was a super achiever. I mean, the type of kid that got straight A's and was president of her school, all of that. I graduated from high school as a Summa Cum Laude, went straight to college, got a scholarship, left Hawaii, I grew up in Hawaii and I went to Philadelphia. I went straight through, I used to have like 19 to 22 credits a semester. It was a lot, and I also was working three jobs because I had it in my head that I needed to pay back my student loans by the time I graduated.
Nicole:I was also playing soccer full time for money. And then as soon as I graduated, which was in four years, I went straight into getting a corporate job. Paid off my student loans within a year and a half. Then I got another corporate job and another and I worked my way up really quickly to become the creative director of a marketing firm. Then I buy my first condo and my first car all by 24.
Nicole:I reached sort of this tier of everything I was supposed to do, but at 25 I just felt lost. I didn't feel proud or accomplished or like I had made it. I felt uncertain and unsure of what I was doing and, like, completely lost. I remember buying a book about the 25 I forget. Like, something about feeling totally lost when you're 25.
Nicole:Quarter life crisis. That's what it was. And if you've read that, you maybe know where I'm coming from. But I always knew in my bones that I was meant to start my own business but I was too fucking scared to do it. So I stuck it out at my corporate job for three more years while trying to start something on this side.
Nicole:Then I get laid off because I was the most senior, highest paid person at my job even though I was one of the youngest ones. I took this as a sign. This is a sign that I need to start my own business. So then I fail two separate businesses that I went all in on. Like full on all in on these businesses.
Nicole:Failed miserably. Then I start the wedding business, which just did okay. Like in year one through five I was probably making 10,000 to 30 thousand a year. In year six through 10 that's when things started to like start to find my flow. Had quite a bit of experience at this point with failing, with entrepreneurship, and with making things happen within a business of my own.
Nicole:I had learned all of these skills that you need to learn when becoming an entrepreneur. By year six through ten, I started making more money. So, like, my $30,000 went up to $130,000 by year ten. But, it took me legit, like, ten years since I started the wedding business to get there. It was not an easy path.
Nicole:I felt behind. I felt not good enough. I felt like everybody else was better at it than me. I beat myself up about that. And it took me, like, till I was in my mid thirties, early thirties, to to really feel confident in myself and, like, this is what I was supposed to be doing.
Nicole:I finally felt like I was on the right path, I started then making money that was reflective of my confidence. I started building a team and a business that felt reflective of me too and that took time. It took a long time. So I just tell you that because I don't want you to feel like you're alone or like you're behind because sometimes even now and I have two successful businesses. I have two homes in Hawaii.
Nicole:I have a swimming pool in my backyard, and I have three kids, and I married this amazing, handsome, beautiful, kind, loving man. Like, I have all the things, but I still feel pressure to make more. I still feel behind, I still feel lost sometimes. I still question my path. I still feel like there's a million things to do and never enough time.
Nicole:I'm more conscious now of those thoughts and I don't fully believe them but they still come up like little bugs in my head constantly. These feelings, I just want you to know that they come from this societal pressure outside of ourself, from our culture, from our parents, from our friends, the pressure to, you know, buy a house by 25, retire by 65, have 1,000,000 in retirement by 50. I don't even know where I got that from, but that was something I always had in my head. Need to have $1,000,000 to retire. Wanna do that by 45 and 50 at the latest.
Nicole:Who even makes that up? Like, I made that up myself. But what about retirement? You should be retired by 65. Like, I googled this.
Nicole:Like, that that age specifically, that was established in 1935 by president Roosevelt. He's the one who made up. You should people in The US should retire by age 65 because this was the year that The United States created the Social Security Act. 1935, like that is so long ago. Think about what people looked like in that time.
Nicole:That's when it was decided that we need to have lived a full life and retire by 65. And we are still buying into that. We still push ourselves to achieve this insane thing. And that's not true. Who said you need to retire by '65?
Nicole:What about get married and buy a house by '25? Where did we even learn this shit? Where did I get that in my head? Did did you hear that too? Am I the only crazy one that believed that?
Nicole:I don't know. But it is put an insane amount of pressure on me to to do this goal, didn't let me fully enjoy my twenties and have fun and explore and be okay with not knowing, be okay with figuring it out, be okay with making $10,000 a year sometimes, or zero sometimes, be okay with not having it all together, and not push myself so hard that I felt like crying most days. So what about business? What are some of the beliefs that we have about them that aren't serving us? What about you should at least make the same amount of money in your business, in your wedding business that you did at a corporate job or that you could at a corporate job?
Nicole:Like, is that true? For me, it definitely wasn't. I didn't make the same amount of money in my business as I was making in my corporate job for, like, freaking eight years or something like that. It took a long time for me to build that, but once I got there, I started, like, steamrolling super quick, and I had the life that I wanted. It took a long time though.
Nicole:What's another belief that you feel like you should do? What about your business? Like, it needs to be secure. Well, news flash, no business. No job is safe and secure.
Nicole:You can get laid off at any time. You can lose your job in a second. Your business can fail. It's just life. What you make of it and who you are is what makes it succeed.
Nicole:What about the belief that your business needs to provide stability? It needs to allow you to save money. You can't have overhead. Like, all of these things totally made up, totally don't serve you, and are not helping you because they're just adding pressure to this insane amount of pressure that you probably already feel. But here's what I know.
Nicole:If you are even listening to this, you are probably the type of person who's driven, who's ambitious, who most likely has started a business, probably a semi successful one, or maybe you're thinking about start starting one. And that in itself is a huge accomplishment. That tells me that you are the type of person that makes shit happen. So take a minute here to feel proud of yourself. You're taking a chance on yourself.
Nicole:You're going all in. You're trying new things. You're figuring it out, you're taking chances that 95% of the population isn't willing to. That is a special kind of person and that's huge! So if you haven't made 10 ks yet and you're still figuring it all out, you're probably in the process of learning.
Nicole:You're trying and failing, trying and failing. And let me tell you, every entrepreneur has to do a certain amount of failure before they're gonna make it. And it's gonna feel like you're failing and failing and failing and failing. Kinda like when you pull back a bow and arrow, and you pull it and you pull in it slow and you're feels tight and stressed and you're pulling it and pulling it and you feel like you're never gonna go anywhere, and then all of a sudden, it hits a threshold. Right?
Nicole:And it just you let go, and that arrow just takes off and goes super far and it just flies. Just like in the breeze. So easy, just takes off. Then shit just starts turning and you start making money and things start working for you. If you're in the part where it's still getting pulled back and still feels hard and still feels like pressure and you haven't quite tipped the scale yet, that's okay because that is exactly what entrepreneurship is like.
Nicole:Every entrepreneur has gone through this. Every wedding business owner has gone through this. And everybody has a different spot where they tip. You just have to keep going. Those who say that they have started a business, an online business, wedding business, whatever, and they're having ten k months, twenty k months, fifty k months right off the bat.
Nicole:Because I see a lot of that on TikTok and in Instagram, and it's like, ugh. It's like it makes you feel like shit. Right? Like but here's what they don't tell you. They have grown in other ways.
Nicole:They didn't start at the same place you are, and there's things that you are still learning that you still need to learn. We all grow at a perfect pace for us. So I was meant to take eight years to get to 100 in a business of my own. I it just took me that long. It might take you that long too.
Nicole:It might take you shorter. It might take you longer. But if I was able like, all of that growth that was happening during that time was so beneficial because after that, I could I started another business that took off really quickly. And I know if for some reason, I know this would never happen, but, like, if shit fell apart and there were no more weddings, I could start another business. Any business.
Nicole:Literally. And I could make money of it. I know that in my bones. I knew that when COVID happened, and, I mean, people weren't allowed to fly to Hawaii. I was like, I will figure this out.
Nicole:I was still able to make money. I just changed my business model a little bit. I was making the same amount of money as I was before during COVID because I now had the bandwidth, I had the knowledge, I had the experience to pivot. And that's something that you are probably doing right now. You're gaining that experience.
Nicole:You're gaining that knowledge. You're failing over and over so that when it's time, you can take off. And that's going to happen for you. And you're growing. You're learning.
Nicole:You're evolving. You're figuring it out. And I just wanna reassure you that everything does fall into place. It just takes time. All this pressure from family, from friends, from society to keep up, to hit these made up milestones, it's all a bunch of insane, unnecessary, heavy pressure that you need to just put down right now because you are in the perfect place doing the exact perfect thing for you right now.
Nicole:And even if it feels scary, even if you feel unsure, even if you feel behind, you're not. You're figuring it out. And you are the type of person that always figures it out. You're the type of person that makes shit happen. That's just who you are.
Nicole:And this is just one more thing. And if it takes five years or ten years, that's okay. Because you're becoming a bigger version of yourself, one who's more connected to the soul path that you have felt inside all along. And if you're following that, no matter what, that is something to celebrate. Something to be proud of.
Nicole:Something that I love about me and something that I love about you. And Happy, happy Friday, guys. That was a big vent for me and something I personally needed to hear because I've been feeling a little bit stuck in behind and like I should be doing more. But the truth is I'm where I should be and you are exactly where you should be too. Want you to take a minute today and just pat yourself on the back for even putting yourself in a place where you can achieve these big things because it's gonna happen and I believe in you and this is all working out for you and you got this.
Nicole:I know this wasn't a normal tips and tricks episode but I needed it and I'm hoping it gives you some room to breathe and gives you some peace too. So that's all I have for now guys. Have a great weekend and I'll see you next week!