Leveling Up Your Wedding Business with a Business Coach

Kristina Stubblefield: [00:00:00] Thank you for tuning in to Wedpro Business Solutions. I'm your host, Kristina Stubblefield. Today's topic is going to be about five benefits of having a business coach. I'm not even saying that it has to be me, but having a business coach, someone that is in your corner that can do the 10,000 foot view of your business, help you reach your goals, stay top of mind.

The list goes on and on. And over the last year, I've had people say to me over and over again, I wish I knew the benefits years ago, of having a business coach. I thought it was this, or I thought it was that I did not realize how many different parts of my business that a coach could help me with. And I'm hoping this podcast [00:01:00] episode will clarify this for wedding professionals because the wedding industry can be very competitive and you're consistently growing, events are changing, and you have to adapt to all of the different social media platforms and algorithms and search engine optimization, all the things that affect your business and I want to share with you that one of the biggest things to keep in mind with a business coach, it can help you level up your business by having a coach.

So let's dive in to these top five benefits. Improved business strategy, I love wedding professionals and I've worked with them for so many [00:02:00] years. You're engulfed in your business, you know it forward and backwards, but to take a step back and take off all those hats that you wear, remember the accountant, the marketer, the salesperson, all of it, and to look at your business from that 10,000 foot view.

A business coach can help you with a solid business plan that aligns with your goals and helps you achieve them. A business coach can also help you drill down to your target audience and deliver a marketing plan that is to grow your business, to increase your online presence, to reach a wider audience, whatever it is that you need in your business.

Number two, accountability, [00:03:00] and this is a big one for me. For many years I had to work on our own business from an accountability standpoint, and what I mean by that is our clients always come first, but what would happen is there would be hardly any time in our schedule to work on our own business, and that's a problem.

We are very fortunate, we get a lot of referral business and have for a number of years, and I'm so thankful for that. But the accountability part of our own online presence was important to us, so our own business coach helped us with that because sometimes, as I mentioned, it's hard to get out of your own way.

A business coach can help you set goals, but also [00:04:00] keep you on track to achieve them. We don't wanna just set them and it is this great big number that there's just no way, you do not have the steps in place or a plan to do the different task it takes to reach those goals. And while I'm saying that is sometimes you have a goal that's easily obtainable, you have no one in your corner to say, that's not a hairy, scary goal that's the same number you did last year. To really dive in and say, what do you want out of this? Why are you doing what you are doing? a business coach can also help you stay focused I've been fortunate to work with wedding professionals for many, many years, well over 15 years [00:05:00] actually over 20 years, and this industry is very different than others. It's event after event after event, you're working on events that are months out, you're working on events that are next week, and then you also have leads coming in. It is a very different industry, so staying focused on the tasks that need to be accomplished on a consistent basis.

To help you keep going in the direction to achieve whatever goals you want, whether that is a dollar amount, whether that's a number of events, whether that's better work-life balance. A coach can help you with that. Number three, improved time management. A big, big pain point that I've heard time and time again from wedding professionals is time management.

It's just as if the [00:06:00] day slips away, and a business coach can help you manage your time more efficiently they can help you identify tasks that are essential to your business growth, or to the tasks that are essential to helping you reach your goals but the other thing is prioritizing them. That is so important.

A lot of times I've been guilty of this you do the easier task that's on your list, why it's the easiest one to market off, but is it the one that moves the needle the most in your business? Having that help to prioritize that can make a big difference. Not only can it increase productivity, but it can also allow you to stay focused and that focus can equal [00:07:00] greater revenue or greater work-life balance.

The next one, number four. Increased confidence, and this one, a lot of these, strike home for me. That's why I'm sharing them not only are they the most talked about points of working with a business coach, but they also have been things that we've had to work on on our own business and myself, I've had to work on confidence.

From being on camera, to getting up on stage and speaking in front of hundreds of people, to teaching 20, 30 people in a group and having that responsibility of your providing the education for them to walk away with, so increased confidence. For many years I've worked with people on being on camera and

they're nervous, you [00:08:00] put a microphone in front of them, you put a ring light in front of them, or, in front of a backdrop, and it's almost as if you can just feel the tension change in the room. Why can I identify that? Because I've been through it, I can relate to it. A business coach can increase your confidence,

by helping you learn new skills, by helping you use new strategies, and you're gonna feel more confident not only in your ability to run your business, but also in your ability to show up to an event with not 14 things swirling in your mind about what you need to do when you're done with that event.

The mental part of it plays such a role, especially with confidence. I've been fortunate to work with a number of people [00:09:00] about overcoming self-doubt, and it brings me such joy because that's something that I had to work through myself and now to be able to take my experience and share with people tools that I've used and to help them basically hone their craft.

It brings me a lot of joy. So many times I see wedding professionals that are absolutely amazing at their services or their products that they offer, but when they go to talk to people in person or they go on camera, that's not who shows up. And I love to help people just pull in and be their authentic self.

I will love to help people get to the point where on camera you are [00:10:00] the same person when they meet you at a wedding show or when you show up for a consultation appointment, that same professional wedding vendor that has done it for however many years, that's who shows up, because when it comes to the events, you're on it.

 It's your specialty, you love it, that's what you like to focused on. But we all know how marketing works, and I've always enjoyed helping people be authentic, whether it be on social media, their website, the search engines, their email blast, wherever that message is them, whether it's in writing or on video.

So confidence, is a big factor and a business coach can really help [00:11:00] you show more confidence, help you show up online with more authority just by being yourself. As I mentioned, that's one that is very close to me. The fifth one that I wanted to share with you all personalized support. A business coach can provide support that's tailored to your specific business needs.

Why? Because they know you, they can identify areas where you need to improve but also provide you the resources and tools to make those improvements, not just, well, you need to work on this, this is an area that you can improve in and here's some things we can do to accomplish that. They can also help you navigate any challenges.

I mentioned before about the ever-changing landscape of social media and [00:12:00] the algorithms and marketing as a whole, digital marketing so many times wedding professionals are so frustrated by it. In some cases, people don't even wanna spend the time to show up on social media, as a wedding professional.

Engaged couples, I should say people are getting engaged all the time, not just in certain seasons, not just around the holidays, there's people getting engaged every day, and with so many decisions about wedding vendors being made by the perception online. It is really important to have a business coach help you along the way. Things are going to change throughout the year for your business year after year, things are going to change. I've worked with people for a number of years, some people I meet with on a monthly basis, some people I [00:13:00] meet with on a quarterly basis, it all depends on their specific business needs. Sometimes I have wedding professionals reach out to me and they need to get some things in place. They really need a strategy they haven't had a strategy before or it's been a long time, and we need to work through that.

Figure it out to help them achieve their goals and then what does that look like? What does it take? Do they need to get a system in place? Do they need their processes mapped out? Do they need help with their email marketing, their messaging, their online presence? It's identifying the areas that need work and then being able to say, this is the steps that need to take place.

And figuring out how does that get done? Is that, do you have room on your plate to do these tasks? Do we need to [00:14:00] figure out how these are outsourced? and that for me is one of my favorite things, is really being able to work alongside and be able to guide them and give my input when it's asked, or give my expertise and experience on helping them come up with the task needed to accomplish that, to reach their goals. And although that can seem very overwhelming for people.

I encourage you to open your mind and consider having a business coach in your corner inquire about it. Maybe you have in your mind that this is how a business coach works. This is how much it costs, and this is exactly the process of how it works. In the years I've been doing this, I would say 95% of [00:15:00] my clients have said, this is not what I thought I had made up in my mind, all this other stuff, and it is completely different than what I thought.

 It is much easier to work through this than I ever thought possible, and honestly, what I hear is they end up saving so much time and time is money. But also they end up saving money because they've just been running ads on Facebook or doing, promoting things on Instagram, or they've been running some Google ads because another vendor told 'em that it worked for them.

There's not a plan in place to follow, and I'm here to tell you. What works for another wedding professional not necessarily is gonna work for you, even if you're in the same industry. There's a lot of factors, to consider. What [00:16:00] services do you offer? What price point are you at? What types of events?

Is it just weddings or is it other types of events? The list goes on and on, and having someone go through all of that information with you and come up with a strategic plan and then the actionable steps needed to move the needle in your business, or as some say to me, Level up your business, whatever that means to you it doesn't always have to mean growing your business, taking on more events, it doesn't have to mean that. As I said, I'm working with quite a few people right now that are trying to do better about work life balance so I hope by hearing just these top five benefits that stand out to me of working with a business coach.

I hope that you will [00:17:00] open your mind up to it and maybe have a conversation with someone. If you wanna reach out to me, you absolutely can do so. You can go to my website, KristinaStubblefield.com, and you can schedule a free consultation call. There's a button right on my website, but there are other.

Business coaches out there that work with wedding professionals that have experience in the industry that are amazing coaches, my hope is that you'll take away from this episode that you should consider having a business coach in your corner. They can help you achieve your goals, they can help you with productivity, they can help you with confidence, with personalized support and with accountability.

And I know how big the roles, these five things I just mentioned, play in every wedding professionals business. If you [00:18:00] have not already joined my free Facebook group, I encourage you to do so. It is WedPro Business Community, I would love to hear your feedback. Just send me an email or contact me on social media.

Until next time, take care.