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Episode 006: Kat Schmoyer - Increasing Your Bottom Line by Diversifying Your Offerings
159 Plays7 years ago
"Hi y'all! I’m Kat and I help creative boss ladies (boss ladies like you!) dream big & bold. I’m all about #realtalk & real results. I believe in that thinking "tiny, small but mighty" can push you even closer to those "go big or go home" dreams! I’m the owner, lead planner & florist behind Dear Sweetheart Events and the founder and visionary of Creative at Heart Conference. I’m an educator, speaker, activator & love watching those lightbulb moments go off!!
My HS sweetie, Matt, and I live in a two stoplight town with our Brittany Spaniel, Knox. Matt recently left his full-time job to join me in small biz life & we're loving this new season!! Baby Schmo will arrive in May so right now our down-time consists of nursery prep & eating all the burgers & fries I can get my hands on!! My vices include buying all the pink things & sappy romance novels on my Kindle! I love connecting on IG Stories & would love to say "hi" over there!"
For the show notes, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-kat-schmoyer-episode-6/
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Transcript
Starting a Business with Courage
00:00:07
Speaker
Yeah, I just jumped in, which might not have been the best thing looking back, but hey, it worked out really well. I found that I had allowed myself to believe fears for so long that, oh, I'm never going to do it. Oh, you have to have X, Y, and Z in order before you can take this step, that I just needed to take the leap.
Introduction to Guest Kat Schmoyer
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands That Book Show, where we help creative businesses find more clients and build their brands. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:39
Speaker
Today's guest is Kat Schmoyer and Kat is the owner, lead planner and florist at Dear Sweetheart events. And she's the founder and visionary of the popular Creative Art Conference.
Importance of Saying Yes
00:00:50
Speaker
Today, she's chatting with us about starting her business and how she increased her bottom line through diversifying her offerings.
00:00:59
Speaker
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I mean, if you had decided not to, I would have probably just pestered Matt until he got you to come on the show. So I'm glad that you just said yes.
Topics for Discussion: Criticism and Brand Management
00:01:15
Speaker
But there's a lot to talk about, and I feel like when I was trying to come up with kind of ideas for what this interview would look like, what kind of questions I wanted to ask, there was so much that I could talk about. You know, I could talk about handling criticism, which is something that I feel like you do so well and elegantly, and it's just something that everybody
00:01:35
Speaker
in business has to deal with.
Managing Multiple Brands and Personal Milestones
00:01:38
Speaker
I could have talked to you about your most recent brand launch with Kat Schmoyer. Now you're managing at least three different brands. So there's plenty to talk about there. But in the last year alone, you've gotten pregnant. Congratulations. Expecting a little boy, Meg, who's going to be our little boy's best friend.
00:01:58
Speaker
There you go. Just so you know, David is a great name. All right. We keep getting pitched all the names. You brought Matt on full-time, your husband. How's that been? How's that looked?
00:02:13
Speaker
It's been really awesome. If you had asked me four years ago if my husband would ever work together full time, I would have laughed in your face because we are so different. Our personalities are so different.
00:02:28
Speaker
He just isn't like he's not feminine in any way shape or form and like you can see like all the pink things I'm a wedding planner and like there's just so much like girliness about my business right even my brand and so I would have literally laughed at you, but it's been the best thing for our marriage honestly
Creative at Heart Conference Success
00:02:44
Speaker
and
00:02:44
Speaker
I feel like we have so much more to communicate about because we work together full time. He's so much more a part of the business and the business decisions that even just our conversations over dinner and things like that are so much more fun because we're doing the same things and we really are a team in every aspect of our life, which we never really had before. We're really grateful for that.
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, one of the things that I found was a challenge working with Chris is that we did all of a sudden have so much more to communicate about. And it's crazy, I think, how much, you know, how much changes when you go from not seeing each other for an eight hour period a day,
00:03:28
Speaker
to literally seeing each other every time all the time so i know that i know that was there is certainly an adjustment period maybe maybe something that we're still going through you know since starting to work together absolutely and i mean the
00:03:47
Speaker
business will quote mine you know from the beginning so then to bring him in it was kind of interesting to like teach him certain things and then be like oh no that's wrong like you can't do it that way and you don't have to have those conversations with your spouse very different you know just somebody that you've hired on so definitely learned a lot with like conflict management too I think through all of those things
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
Starting Dear Sweetheart Events
00:04:10
Speaker
And beyond beyond that, you just you know, we got through what round of creative a heart back in November was that was round seven was our most recent round and we're getting ready to launch round eight. Yeah, and that's super exciting and round and round seven. I mean, that was probably one of your most successful creative hearts to date, right?
00:04:31
Speaker
It was. It's hard to pick a favorite because it is, I feel like, you know, picking a favorite dog or like a favorite child or something like that. But for so many reasons, I feel like it was successful. I feel like we finally stepped into our own as a conference, as an educational experience for creatives. We were really able to like,
00:04:48
Speaker
put that brand voice out there and be very strong with what we wanted to bring to the table. And our attendees saw that, our educators were able to pour into our attendees. So I'm really excited for 2018.
00:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, we're really excited to, and that's something that we'll definitely loop back around to towards the end of the interview here. And I
Initial Steps in Business and First Client Acquisition
00:05:07
Speaker
feel like we've kind of gotten a little bit ahead of ourselves. I really want to go back, and I want to focus on your wedding planning business. And I think that just the things that have gone on for you in the last year have illustrated how much you have going on and how much we could possibly talk about, right? Right. But your first business, right, was Dear Sweetheart Events. And can you just tell us,
00:05:29
Speaker
How did that start? How did you decide to get into wedding planning and then how is it involved over the course of its existence? Yeah, so very cliche. I planned
Networking and Exposure Strategies
00:05:39
Speaker
my own wedding and thought, hey, I plan my own wedding. I can totally plan other people's weddings. I had always loved the creative space. I was one of those blog stalkers and Instagram was just becoming a thing.
00:05:51
Speaker
a big thing when I launched my business four years ago. So I was following a lot of people within the wedding and like creative space and realized that hey wedding planning was kind of like my ticket in for lack of a better way to say that like I loved it. I loved planning our wedding and I thought I could do that for other clients. I could really put myself out there and be able to serve them in that way. My nine to five was incredibly draining. It wasn't
Building Client Base and Pricing Challenges
00:06:15
Speaker
what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I started
00:06:19
Speaker
pushing like so much energy into growing Dear Sweetheart events as fast as I could so that I could quit my day job. So how did you even take that first step? So I mean you planned your own wedding. Right. But how did you take that first step to getting your first client? I mean had you already started doing some of that stuff on the side even before you really knew you wanted to become your full thing or did you just you just jump in?
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, I just jumped in, which might not have been the best thing looking back, but hey, it worked out really well. I found that I had allowed myself to believe fears for so long that, oh, I'm never going to
Client Acquisition and Relationship Building
00:06:54
Speaker
do it. Oh, you have to have X, Y, and Z in order before you can take this step, that I just needed to take the leap.
00:06:59
Speaker
So I signed up for my LLC on October 1st. I'll never forget sitting in our townhouse at our kitchen table and immediately started reaching out to my past the wedding vendors that we had booked since our wedding was just a couple months prior. I reached out to all of them, told them about what I was doing, changed my Instagram handle.
00:07:19
Speaker
to my business name and just started putting as much energy and resources as I could. The very first bride I booked was actually a bride who commented on my wedding on Caitlyn James' blog and then reached out to me and said, I would like for you to do this for my wedding. So I booked her through a random blog comment and then just continued to build through social media and style shoots and things like that.
00:07:43
Speaker
But yeah, I did it a little bit backwards because I was so tired of telling myself no, that I just needed to like jump in and put it all out there at once. How do you even know where to start? Did you have any experience with this kind of stuff in the past? Before, like, you know, you knew you needed to start at LLC, you immediately change your Instagram handle to your, you know, to your business name. Like, how did you get direction from anybody during this time period?
00:08:07
Speaker
Um, not really. I think because I was, I had immersed myself in the industry already. I'd read a lot of blog posts, right? So I was following a lot of actually like wedding photographers.
00:08:18
Speaker
industry and so I knew kind of the general like I can start here and then DIY it a little bit and and figure it out as I go and do a lot of trial and error like in those early stages and the thing that was really shocking to me was like when I did reach out to those wedding vendor like my wedding vendors and say hey I've started my business everyone was so positive when I changed that Instagram handle when I made those very small steps and
00:08:42
Speaker
people were very positive and very encouraging about that. And then you get that encouragement and it just want, you want to propel even further forward. You know what I mean? Because you're like, Oh, well people are excited. Like nobody thinks I'm crazy.
Networking Packets and Booking Success
00:08:54
Speaker
I just think I'm crazy. And I'm just going to keep moving forward and see what happens.
00:08:58
Speaker
And that's so important, too. I think that that initial feedback you get from people. And I think that's one of the most terrifying things is to tell people of, you know, your idea. So regardless of whether it's, you know, wedding planning or whatever business it is that you're starting, going out and saying, hey, I'm doing this. All right. I mean, it can be extremely, it can be extremely scary, especially because you're not sure how people are going to react. You're not going to, you know, you're not sure if people are going to be like, really?
00:09:23
Speaker
You're doing this? What gives you the right to do this? It's awesome that you had people in your life that were super enthusiastic and supporting and encouraging of you when you first got started. You booked your first client and did it roll from there? Yes and no.
00:09:46
Speaker
pricing is always been difficult especially in the beginning stages you're trying to figure out like what's the numeric value that I'm putting beside my worth and in the beginning I tried to be a little bit strategic with that pricing structure but also you know made some trial and error mistakes
Balancing Ideal Clients and Business Growth
00:10:02
Speaker
and look back and say oh I should not have allowed her
00:10:05
Speaker
to only pay me that amount of money for that amount of work, things like that. So I think that in terms of the clients rolling in, I was able to work with a handful of who I would now consider ideal clients. Even to this day, if they came to me now four years later, I would still book them. I'm like, yes, that was perfect.
00:10:21
Speaker
wedding day like the aesthetic of the wedding as a designer and a planner also just the bride's personality right like not a bridezilla like those kinds of things but then there was also clients that I was like you know what I'm working with them because I need to leave my full-time job you know and they're not necessarily ideal for my business but they're helping build momentum and propel my business forward so this is like the choice and I'm going to take because I'm in year one.
00:10:44
Speaker
And I think that's so important too. And I think we, especially if you're just reading blog posts and a lot of them are talking about the importance of booking your ideal client and the value in saying no. And all of those things are true, but if you don't have any business otherwise, you need to say yes. You need to pay the bills. And I think that sometimes just in taking clients that you don't think will be your ideal clients, you find, oh, actually I loved working with them.
00:11:11
Speaker
And there's a little bit of a reflection process on, okay, well, why did you like working with them? And maybe it expands your idea of who your ideal client is.
Portfolio Building and Credibility
00:11:20
Speaker
But how did you find those initial clients? So the first one came from an Instagram post, essentially, right? Or a comment on a blog post, you said? A comment on a blog post, yeah. Crazy. What about the other ones? Did they see this first wedding? Or were you booking people even before this wedding had taken place? I was booking people before the wedding was taking place.
00:11:40
Speaker
So I received some vendor referrals, which was awesome because I had reached out to the vendors that I had worked with. But then I also put together little introduction packets and sent them out to 30 vendors that I felt like would be ideal for me. So this was a mixture of wedding photographers, venues in my area, all sorts of things. And at the time, I didn't realize it. But in sending those out, I actually sent them out to vendors all across the state and even out of state.
00:12:08
Speaker
Krista actually got one. I don't know if she remembers. Krista got one like four years ago and it actually then allowed me to really broaden my reach. So then all of these vendors who are working in all sorts of different areas of business and different types of clientele are getting my contact information and then I'm having the ability to potentially work with them too. The other thing that really helped me find and book clients was actually styled shoots.
00:12:35
Speaker
And while it's like an indirect effect, you know, it's not necessarily like I'm not meeting clients at the style shoot, but when you're new and you have no portfolio, like nothing, like I had my wedding and that was it. Um, I had to get portfolio images.
00:12:48
Speaker
So I did 16 style shoots in my first year, which is crazy. Life was crazy. But that built momentum because those style shoots were ideal. They were what I wanted to create, clients I wanted to book. I'm then able to post behind the scenes about them on social media.
00:13:06
Speaker
share the professional images from the amazing photographers on my blog, on my website, things like that. And then other brides were like, oh, wow, she's doing this and this and this. They don't know that it's a style shoot. They don't know if it's a real wedding. So that's then helping build that trust for them to them continue to work
Developing Pricing Strategies
00:13:22
Speaker
with me. So I ended up booking 13 brides in my first year. And I think it was because of like doing that and like really building that momentum because perception really is reality. And when it comes to like the social media world and they, I was,
00:13:34
Speaker
Was busy and they were seeing that I was busy and I wanted them to continue to see that and then want to work with me So I have so many questions about the style of shoots, but we're gonna back up real quick going back to those there's packets So how did you decide first of all? I think I mean, I think that's a genius idea I think that even if you're not in your first year of business That's something that's good to do just introduce yourself to new people and make connections or some variation of that and
00:14:00
Speaker
One, how did you know, who did you even start with? Were you just on Google researching different photographers and other vendors in the area? Did you reach out to a specific kind of vendor? What was in that packet that you sent out?
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, great question. So I used Instagram to do a little bit of research. For me, 30 was a really good number because I wasn't going to go broke sending out 30 packets, right? You have to think about that. You don't have a lot of money in your first year of business. That's right. So I can send 30. About how much did each of these packets cost?
00:14:33
Speaker
I'd have to go back and I can tell you what was in them and that would probably help so I bought little craft like paper bags from Amazon like in bulk okay so that was maybe what like $10 for you know like a big pack of them. My business name is Dear Sweetheart Event so I sent boxes of sweethearts
00:14:49
Speaker
Ha, ha, ha. And then I had little cards made that had my headshot and a little about paragraph as well as my social media links and my website link. So I stuck those little postcards in each of those with the sweethearts and some handmade confetti in the craft paper bag. So not very expensive, light to mail, right, can go in an easy mailer. So you have to think through some of those things because, again, you don't have a lot of income coming in in those early stages of your business.
00:15:15
Speaker
And then I also included a handwritten note aspect to every single packet, which I think that that's really important. So whenever I talk with, you know, coaching clients or anything about doing this, I think that handwritten appeal makes it even more personal. So each person received a little note, whether it was like, Hey, I saw
00:15:33
Speaker
blanks wedding on your blog last week, really loved it, would love to get the chance to work with you at that venue next year. Or, you know, I would love to be able to meet for coffee. I know your favorite is ice try. That's mine too. Or I don't know, something like that, because hey, there's Instagram. You know a lot of things about a lot of people. You find out like, don't be like too stalkerish, but you can stop just a little bit to get some, you know, really personal details about them and about their life and include a short little one liner when you send out that packet.
00:16:00
Speaker
So I tried to make it really simple, really easy to put together and pretty cost efficient for being in the first year. And for me, it was branded really well. So definitely make sure it's branded for you and for your business. And then in terms of who those 30 were, I just did some research on Instagram and some of them were wish lists. Like I was like, oh my gosh, I would love to work with like these photographers. Like these are like dreamies for me. Some were like more practical in terms of venues. Like, well, this is local. This is 10 minutes down the road. I'm sending it to this one, like that sort of thing.
00:16:29
Speaker
And just sort of compiled my list and then I emailed all of them and said hi. I'm cat. You don't know me I'd love to send you something in the mail if you're comfortable with it Please
Diversifying Services with Floral Design
00:16:38
Speaker
send me your mailing address when they sent me their mailing address. I've sent their packet out to them
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. And how many, so you sent out about 30, you ended up booking 13 weddings in your first year. Were most of those weddings from, or did they have the vendors, what you sent out these packets to?
00:17:00
Speaker
Actually, yes. I think 10 of the 13 weddings were with a vendor that I had sent a packet to, which I didn't realize until you asked me that question. So that's really cool to think about. Yeah. I mean, that's incredible. And think about like just the ROI on that, that investment there, you know, you probably spent, you know, maybe $50 total on all the, on these, these 30 different gifts essentially. And on that you booked, you know, probably 10 weddings.
00:17:26
Speaker
So that's awesome. Now moving over to the style of shoots, actually one more question about that. Did you send it to specific kinds of vendors? Like were they mostly photographers that you sent to or was it other, was it florists or venues?
00:17:44
Speaker
They were mostly photographers and venues since for me I knew that those would be who the bride would potentially book before me and then they would be sending referrals for a wedding planner or a day of coordinator. I did send to like my wedding floor since I just got married and you know I had built a relationship with her
Balancing Passion and Profit
00:18:00
Speaker
but and I didn't send him to any wedding planners because for me I was doing this as referral based and while yes they could send me referrals I was really hoping to work with these specific photographers or these specific venues versus going wedding planner to wedding planner for the referral.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. So as you start planning these style shoots, all right, and so you did 16 of them, which is, which is incredible. I don't know if I've done 16 style shoots ever, right? So total over the span of the last seven years. So you did 16 of them. So that means you had content to share for four years, you could probably not booked any weddings and still had content to share throughout that first year.
00:18:38
Speaker
How did you reach out to people to set up those style sheets because like you said, one, you're still working here this time, right? Are you still working your nine to five? Yes. Yeah. So you're still working your nine to five. So you're incredibly busy. And you just got to imagine that, you know, other people out there are busy too. And, you know, were you concerned that people would say no,
00:18:57
Speaker
Absolutely. And I have pitched style shoots to some people who said no. And I say no to people now and even did at that point. No is just part of being in business. We have to get used to hearing that word. For me, I found that as soon as I started broadcasting that I was doing style shoots and being as open as I was on social media and on my blog about it, vendors were actually coming to me.
00:19:20
Speaker
So I did quite a few where photographers would reach out and say, hey, I've been looking for a planner. I'm not the planner. Here's my vision. Can you bring it to life? So all those 16 were not ones that I was just crafting on Pinterest and then I'm putting together from square one. Some of those, probably about half of them, I'm being reached out to and pulled into the experience. And then that started me then doing shoots for photographers' workshops and moving into a whole different world of styled shoots that I had never even considered when I'd first started.
00:19:50
Speaker
Did you have again, did you start with a specific list of photographers that you wanted to reach out to organize these style shoots? And did you work? I know for a couple of them, you had to have worked with different people because they had reached out to you. But were most of them with different, you know, vendors?
00:20:06
Speaker
Yes, they were. I'd have to look back, honestly, but I don't think, I think there might have been one photographer repeat in those 16 in my first year, but they were with all different vendors because I wanted to do that. Sometimes, the rental company, Paisley and Jade's a really popular one in this area. I work with them a ton and things like that. They might have repeated, but in terms of photographer venue, those would not be repeat. I want to work with new people.
00:20:34
Speaker
be able to make connections with them at the styled shoot and then be able to have additional like portfolio images. Yeah and so you so in your first year 16 style shoots plus the 30 you know welcome packets essentially that you sent out you met a ton of people. Yes.
Managing Multiple Brands with Clarity
00:20:50
Speaker
Would you you know looking back on doing all of that was it worth it?
00:20:54
Speaker
Yes, I was very busy, and we tend to glorify busy, but I do work well and busy. I am a hustler. I get bored pretty easily, and I like to just do things. So for me, again, remember when I started, I was like, I'm tired of waiting. I'm just going to jump in and just figure it out as I go.
00:21:16
Speaker
So that's exactly how I handle the entire first year of my business was I'm just going to keep going and keep moving because I want to build this momentum for my business. I think it allowed me to launch creative at heart so successfully even the first time because I had built so much momentum. I was only 10 months into business when we launched the first creative at heart.
00:21:34
Speaker
Like I wasn't an expert by any means but I was building momentum and making relationships and then those people were then pushing the ideas that I had forward and that was so incredible to see.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's crazy how much impact, you know, relationships can have, or building, you know, strategic relationships can have on a business. I'm reading a book now called The Power of the Other, just started it, but it's all about this stuff. And I feel like, you know, they could probably do a case study of your business and plop that into this book.
00:22:07
Speaker
Like I said, I'm only in his first chapter. But moving on, if there was anything, and I want to get back to pricing, because I know you had mentioned kind of in passing there that the first couple of people, maybe you did not charge them the appropriate price. And I think pricing is one of those, I mean,
Entrepreneurial Wisdom: Hard Work and Fairy Dust
00:22:25
Speaker
you just have to get it right at some point, because otherwise you go out of business, or you just hate your life.
00:22:31
Speaker
So pricing is one of those things I think that when you figure out it makes such a huge impact on your business. So when you looking back, what would you have changed about your pricing structure?
00:22:47
Speaker
Oh, that's a really good question. Okay, so looking back in terms of my pricing, I think that I would have felt more confident earlier on, which is probably something that a lot of small business owners can say when we look back at our pricing, even in the beginning when you're not charging quite as much like I did my very first wedding I booked was $500 right putting that out there right for all of y'all.
00:23:10
Speaker
I wasn't rolling in the dough because of that first spread. But even with that, I wish I'd been more confident and this is what I'm worth. Because I think that even whether we're charging 500, whether we're charging 5,000, you have to have that confidence when you're speaking with that client and when you're putting yourself out there. And you have to believe that you are worth whatever amount that you're putting beside your business name and you're
00:23:36
Speaker
Asking them to swipe that credit card for or they are definitely not gonna believe it and I
Perseverance in Entrepreneurship
00:23:40
Speaker
think I really struggled with the confidence side of things You see that's so funny that you say that though because on so many other levels it didn't seem like you struggle with the confidence stuff I mean sending out those packets to just you know 30 different different people and then scheduling 16 different style shoots and then Starting creative at heart, which is you know, probably I mean, it's certainly one of my favorite conferences or creative conferences that are out there and
00:24:05
Speaker
You know, so it's funny to hear you talk about how you struggled with confidence around pricing So you that first that first bride she gets the she gets you for five hundred dollars, which is incredible, right? She should be writing you. Thank you. No, it's like hey, I can't believe this is amazing I got I got dear sweetheart events for five
00:24:24
Speaker
How did you make the decision, okay, well, I need to charge more? What was the process going through that? Was there something that, did you do the work and then realize, wow, I kind of charged more than $500? But even beyond that, where did you start with pricing? What are some questions that you even have to think through?
00:24:43
Speaker
Yeah, it was definitely kind of a mixture of like, oh, this has got to be worth more than $500. And she was a great bride. She was very an ideal client kind of bride. But yes, doesn't match my time or the energy that you're putting for $500. So one of the things that was really helpful for me was trying to look at my market and see, OK, what are other wedding planners charging?
Connecting to Kat Schmoyer's Brands
00:25:08
Speaker
for a bride that's in whatever budget that you're working with. Like, so am I going for $20,000 to $30,000 brides? Am I going for $50,000 to $75,000 brides? They're going to charge very different. So I needed to do a little bit of research and figure out, OK, well, what am I trying to talk? Like, who am I trying to talk to? And who am I hoping will book me? And then when I started to figure that out, I made myself a tiered system. So in the beginning, I had three wedding planning packages.
00:25:37
Speaker
And just for easy math because guys math is not my favorite. Let's just say like a thousand two thousand three thousand. OK. Like those are like a day of coordination and partial planning and full planning. I would book five clients within that price range. And then as soon as I booked five clients even if all five were at a thousand dollars and nobody booked three thousand every single package is getting raised five hundred dollars.
00:25:58
Speaker
And then I'm at $1,500, $2,500, $3,500, book five. Every single package is getting raised $500. So for me to build my confidence, it helped me build that confidence slowly. So I'm saying, okay, yes, these brides were priced at this point, but now their friends are coming to me. They can still afford me. I'm not all of a sudden triple my price point and out of my referral range.
00:26:18
Speaker
but I'm charging more. So then over the course of two years, I'm getting at a point where I'm like, yes, this is where I feel incredibly confident with my time and the money actually starting to match.
00:26:36
Speaker
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00:27:02
Speaker
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00:27:52
Speaker
say you raise your prices. Did you ever get to a point where you raise your prices and then all of a sudden maybe you went a little bit longer than normal without getting a booking? Yes. What did you do in response to that? Because I know that occasionally when we were raising our prices, we had that. We raise our prices, then all of a sudden a month goes by and we haven't booked anything and then we start to fear that, oh, maybe we raised our prices too much. How did you deal with that?
00:28:20
Speaker
Well, first you freak out just a little bit, right? That's normal. Let's be real. Totally panic. You think your business is going to fail and everything's going under. I try to give myself a three-month grace period. I just want to say that's like a normal feeling for me. How do failure cases feel like? I guess that's just maybe the entrepreneur's wave. There we go. Everything is sinking. Yeah, it's fine. I'm sorry, but go ahead.
00:28:42
Speaker
Um, so I try to give myself a three month like grace period with that of knowing like, depending on how drastic my price range, um, like I'm raising my prices or if it is putting me into a different tier into a different market, it's probably going to take about three months for that to kind of flush out and me to start to see responses that are positive responses.
00:29:03
Speaker
I'm sorry try to do that. That's the first thing. The second thing I realized actually this happened to us last year with the business. I raised my prices and they were I raised them a little bit too high. So it was actually starting to book clients that weren't ideal in terms of just the entire wedding just wasn't what we were going for.
00:29:22
Speaker
So, I needed to figure out what's the hang up here and I realized that it was my pricing. My brand is not a luxury brand. So, I'm booking more of like the all-American and my brides are in kind of a $30,000 to $50,000 typically like budget, which is still wonderful, right? And that's still a lot of money to put into a wedding. But it's not deemed luxury by our industry.
00:29:45
Speaker
And so I have to be careful with my pricing. And for me, that meant figuring out like, okay, do I wanna go luxury? Because if I keep raising my wedding prices, I'm gonna go into a totally different market of brides. Or can I play around with my entire business structure, look at revenue streams, look at pricing as a whole, and be able to stay where I wanna stay with my wedding planning business.
00:30:06
Speaker
So if you could go back knowing what you know now, would you jump straight to the prices that you are at today? Like how valuable do you think it was going through that progression, you know, every five weddings raising your prices?
00:30:21
Speaker
I think it was very valuable. So while it is very nice to get, you know, the income that we get today from wedding planning, I don't think that I would give up the lessons that I learned to getting here. There was also like, I remember sitting in Starbucks after that $500 bride gave me her $250 deposit and calling Matt and crying because I couldn't believe that somebody wrote Catherine Schmoyer $250.
00:30:47
Speaker
on a check for me to work for her wedding. It just baffled me. So to me that's a big reminder of where I started and I want to feel that excitement with every single client regardless of the dollar sign that's associated with it.
00:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it goes back to what we were saying about your ideal client, too. It's well and good, and there's value in learning who your ideal client is, but I think it's easy to overlook, okay, well now, if I'm just getting started, I only can take these weddings. I mean, if you're just getting started, really, you should, to a certain extent, take what's coming to you. Absolutely. And there's definitely exceptions there. You don't have to say yes to everything, and some you might get, there might be some red flags or you're definitely not booking that one.
00:31:27
Speaker
But for the most part, I think there's value in taking some of those early weddings that maybe you wouldn't have taken otherwise, just in learning who your ideal client is. And then same thing with pricing too. Because it's funny too, what we found, and we do something similar where a certain amount of weddings that we've booked, we raise our prices a little bit. But we've also found we've hit certain
00:31:49
Speaker
certain levels of pricing that are almost like dead zones, you know, so it's like and it wasn't lowering our prices that fixed that it was raising them just a little bit more and so it's such a I mean it really is it's one of those things that Can be super frustrating but You know, like you said it does it takes a little bit I like how you said it takes about three months for you to kind of figure out figure out things I think that people need to stick with that problem a little bit more and
00:32:16
Speaker
Instead of just always default lowering their prices back down to right, you know, whatever whatever they were Right. Do you still have three collections when it comes to prices? No, so we've actually um, I mentioned before I actually I don't remember if I mentioned this before I um, love day of coordination so my business we excel at day of execution is what we call it and
00:32:40
Speaker
So for me, I found because my business grew quickly and I like launched Creative at Heart and then launched Catchmoyer and additional revenue streams and just there's a lot going on. Full service planning brides are really exhausting for me. Just working with one client for that long is not fun for me. Like it's just not and selfish as it is. Like it's just not what I want to do.
00:33:05
Speaker
I love logistics, I love day of, and we have a really awesome system in place. So for us, we actually only have two packages right now, because we really want to focus in on the brides that are looking for a great day of team to be there for them. And you have team members now for Dear Sweetheart events. Yes, I have a lead planner. And do they take their own weddings? She does, yes. So she'll assist me if she doesn't have a wedding that weekend, but then she also takes her own weddings under our company.
00:33:34
Speaker
Okay, that's awesome. So, you know, what you said about remembering, you know, that $250 deposit, you know, you getting that resonates, you know, resonates with me as well. I remember when Krista started booking her first weddings, and again, you know, her first one was $400. Fortunately, we didn't have another $400 one. So we had raised our prices since then.
00:33:57
Speaker
But she started booking weddings and I'm thinking, man, if she only books, you know, I'm doing the math in my head, she only books, you know, like 50 of these, you know, we're gonna be rich, you know, or at least rich in my mind, right? And I feel like that's a, what I didn't realize was that 50 weddings in a year, let's say, would burn us out, you know? Yeah, I think our peak was about 40. And after that year, we had decided, hey, we can't do 40 weddings in a year, we just can't do it.
00:34:26
Speaker
What are some ways that you became more profitable in business without raising your prices? Yeah, I love this question. It really comes down to adding additional revenue streams to your business. I think that can also help you alleviate some of the stress. For instance, right now, if I were to raise my prices today,
00:34:47
Speaker
Um, for dear sweetheart events, I need write that three month kind of grace period. Like, how is this going to go? Well, I have other revenue streams that can bring an income during that three month period. So I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket. So you can take a little bit of risk in your growing business.
00:35:03
Speaker
because you have additional revenue streams. I realized very early on, I'm just a couple months into business that I knew I wanted to go full time, but kind of did the same thing, like did the math of like, okay, well, if I'm getting $1,000 a wedding, there's enough weekends in the year to give me what we need to sustain our family. And so I realized early on, I needed to figure out additional revenue streams. So the very first new one I offered was in-house floral design, because for me, that was the way, same client,
00:35:33
Speaker
Same wedding day two services I could offer and I liked flowers so it was like no-brainer Yeah, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna try this one and see what happens and then that It was super successful for our business We've been very very grateful to be able to do a lot of in-house floral design for our clients But then that also just allowed me to see business as a whole differently and think about even other revenue streams I could add outside of just the wedding day
00:36:00
Speaker
So for the florals, the florals were for the wedding day. Correct. And you were just, you were basically, you know, taking the place of a florist. Yes. Okay. And so what other, what other ones?
00:36:14
Speaker
Um, so then after that, that's really what it kind of came down to with dear sweetheart events. Then when create about heart launched, it became, okay, let's look at education as a whole. What can we do to educate the community and how can this become a revenue stream for our business? Like I want to do this. I'm really passionate about community and our industry and about practical education for creative small business owners. But you know, like any small business, we need to make sure that it is profitable for our family to be able to step into this.
00:36:42
Speaker
And then that became online courses and my shop and just, I mean, those revenue streams can then just continue to build off of one another as you see what your audience is responding to and what they're asking for from you. So in Dear Sweetheart events, when you came, how did you even come up with the in-house floral design idea?
00:37:00
Speaker
If you were giving advice to somebody, so you're working with somebody who is also a service-based business, what advice would you give to them in trying to figure out what are some different revenue streams that they can build into their business? Absolutely. Think about pain points that your client has and how you can address those pain points for them.
00:37:20
Speaker
So for me, it came down to we started offering design services. I started offering design planning for my clients and flowers play such a key role in the design. And I thought, you know what? I could try. Like, let me just try. So I actually pitched it to a bride that I knew would be super receptive to it.
00:37:36
Speaker
The fact that I had never done it before, didn't have a portfolio, I pitched doing her wedding flowers and she was like, yes, absolutely. I trust you. Here's the budget. Go for it. And found that I really loved it so that I attended a floral workshop and I started to do a lot more education on that side of things so that I'm not just adding something just to add something. I have to be an expert. I have to know what I'm doing when I'm pitching this to my clients.
00:37:58
Speaker
Another thing you guys can think about too and just in terms of what are those pain points they have like rehearsal dinner planning. We've done that for our clients. So having maybe some a la carte features or some other things that you can do. You've already booked this one client. So think how can you continue to serve them when you've already booked them and it's easier to like rebook a client than to find a brand new client.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's something that, especially when you're first, I mean, just as you said, doing the math in your head, if you're charging $1,000 a wedding, you know, if you want to make $100,000 a year, you're going to be working a lot of weddings that year. Right. But it's a lot easier to sell to an existing customer than it is a new customer. It's cheaper to do so. They've already bought from you. Hopefully you did a good job and they like what they've got.
00:38:52
Speaker
you know they considered by again but when you when you sold them on in-house floral design did you did you book them as a client first and then say hey this is something else that i can do correct yeah in the beginning now we have it in our package and pricing guide they see that in-house floral design is a service that we offer
00:39:12
Speaker
And we do get requests from clients who are just looking for a florist, but we will not take those weddings. I'm a wedding planner first. Our team is a wedding planning team first. We are a florist second. And there are even certain weddings that, depending on the logistics for other wedding planners listening, you know.
00:39:28
Speaker
The thought of being the florist and the planner is like, holy moly, I can't do both. And so there's those weddings where I'm referring them to really incredible florists that they can excel at that craft and I can excel at ours. So in the beginning, no, it was like we were pitching it after they'd booked. We weren't putting it out there that we offered it. And then as I got more confident with it and our portfolio began to build, it's on our website and it's listed in our package guide right now.
00:39:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think on the other end of the spectrum is, like you said, or kind of like you alluded to, you had to draw that hard line, like, hey, we're a wedding planning team first, we're not going to become florists. So I think on the other end of the spectrum, some people come up with all these different ideas on how they can diversify their revenue stream, but then get away from kind of what their niche is, what they're really good at, who they are.
00:40:19
Speaker
How did you decide like hey we're not gonna we're not doing floral design as a standalone service for people was it just not profitable or Just explain your your thought process behind that yeah for me it came down to Like the two P's came down to like passion and profitability So which one am I the most passionate about and which one is the most profitable for the business?
00:40:42
Speaker
at the time when I was working a full-time job, it wasn't profitable to take on every floral wedding or every floral, like if I need this for a baby shower, this for a rehearsal dinner, like it wasn't profitable because I was working a full-time job. I also am more passionate about wedding planning. Wedding planning is my first love. It's the very first thing that allowed me to enter into this crazy small business world and that's what I wanted our company to excel at and floral to be
00:41:09
Speaker
a great second best, but not the very first thing that we offer. Yeah, I think it's so important to have a strong court offering. And then after that, you can build in other offerings. But without that strong court offering, I think people get overwhelmed by choices and decisions. Absolutely. That's why we don't have 10 collections. You should limit it to two, three, five tops just so people can wrap their mind around it. They don't have decision overwhelmed things.
00:41:38
Speaker
I think that we think intuitively, oh, people want to choose what they want, but they really don't. They want to be told, hey, this is what most people need, and I offer it as a package. It's super easy to consume, super easy for you to wrap your mind around.
00:41:56
Speaker
But I love what you said about going through and figuring out how you can diversify your offerings because I think one thing that small businesses struggle with in particular is, you know, optimizing customer value. Saying, okay, this customer's already bought X from me, all right? They already love working with us. We've already added value for them. How can we increase their customer value? And so you did that by doing floral design.
00:42:26
Speaker
So, you know, hopefully everybody out there listening is starting to think, how can they optimize customer value? And that's something that, you know, we're going to be talking about on this podcast a lot because I think it's super easy to get burned out just, you know, saying, OK, well, I mean, really, there's there's I mean, there's a couple of ways to become more profitable.
00:42:45
Speaker
But, I mean, at least two of them are, you know, raising your prices, booking more of whatever that is. And I think when you, you know, booking more can, especially for a service-based business, because there's limited, you know, manpower in many ways, can lead to burnout. But I think one of the most effective ways to become more profitable is, like you've done, just increasing, you know, or optimizing customer value through diversifying your offerings.
00:43:14
Speaker
So since then, you've launched a thousand businesses.
00:43:21
Speaker
But you do, you have, I mean, you have Dear Sweetheart events, and you have a website for that, and you have Cat Schmoyer, and you have a website for that, and then you have Creative at Heart, and you have a website for that, and you know, I think it's, I think it's easy, especially when you're starting a new business, to forget how much work is required to start it, you know, because you're sitting in your started business, you know, your developed business, thinking, oh, you know, look at this, I've developed it, right?
00:43:48
Speaker
And you forget the 16 style shoots that you did your first year. So how do you manage all of those different brands in a coherent way? So as to not send a mixed signal to a bride who wants to book you as a wedding planner and they see this catch-moyer thing and this creative heart thing.
00:44:11
Speaker
Yeah, so Catch My Air was actually born because of that, because I felt like I was starting to send a lot of mixed messages. The Catch My Air brand's been around for about a year now, or a little over a year now, and before I had creative at heart conference, right? Very clearly what that is, right? The conference for creative small business owners. And then I had Dear Sweetheart Events, very clear with that is wedding planning for brides.
00:44:35
Speaker
but i started offering education i was starting to get requests for coaching and i loved to be able to sit down with other wedding planners and creatives one on one i was starting to think about courses and you know products and things that i could create and i felt like i didn't have a clear space
00:44:51
Speaker
to talk about that because it could get muddled, right? I'm putting that under DSC, but then my brides are like, wait, so what does she do? Is she a planner? I wait, but then she does this. But then I felt like under creative at heart, creative at heart isn't about me. We really want to propel our educators. We really want to work with our attendees. So I didn't feel comfortable.
00:45:09
Speaker
just talking about things that I was doing on that specific platform. So it actually was because of a really harsh but great conversation with my friend Megan Martin and she was like, Kat, you just need to do this. You just need to start this, create a new Instagram, create a new website, new newsletter, just start everything. And I was like, holy moly. And we did it and it's honestly one of the best things I think that we could have done for the business because we set three separate audiences. So now I very clearly know when I'm on the DSC platform, I am speaking to brides.
00:45:39
Speaker
I'm talking about weddings, I'm talking about flowers.
00:45:42
Speaker
When I'm speaking with a catch lawyer, I'm speaking to women who are just like me. It's business to business, right? I know exactly who my audience is and I know exactly what creative at heart is. So while it seems very complicated, it actually has been really helpful for me to have all three. Not every business needs that. I think if I didn't have creative at heart, I probably could have looped education under my wedding so that I know that a lot of small business owners in the wedding industry do that with their business and it works really well.
00:46:11
Speaker
But for me, I needed to have the three separate spaces. And I think it's just as important when you're offering different things. So whether it be floral design or however you've diversified your offerings within a single business to make sure that people understand what your core offer is and what you do. And you do all of those things so well. And it must be that hard work and fairy dust.
00:46:40
Speaker
And really, I want to ask you about that. I mean, it's a great tagline. But this is really the question that I think people want answered is, what is fairy dust? Is it a euphemism? Can you take fairy dust while you're pregnant?
00:46:55
Speaker
Oh my goodness. If I actually had the legit fairy dust, I would probably be like a billionaire at this point. So hard work in fairy dust actually came from the first Create the Heart conference, believe it or not. The very first time I spoke at the conference, that tagline was kind of born out of talking about like that's what it takes to run a small business, right? It takes a lot of hard work. And every now and then you need that little extra dose of fairy dust.
00:47:18
Speaker
But for the most part, it's just take like real talk like business is hard and we all know that but we love it and we're addicted to it for some strange reason. That's why we're entrepreneurs and it takes that hard work and ferried us to make it happen.
00:47:31
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, one last question, because I think I would regret it if I didn't ask you this, you've definitely gone through some hard times as an entrepreneur. And so, you know, and I gotta imagine that there's people out there listening that are also going through, you know, hard times in business themselves. What piece of advice and we could, you know, this could be a whole separate podcast with you in kind of overcoming criticism and working through challenges and stuff like that.
00:47:59
Speaker
Um, but just, you know, quickly, what, what piece of advice would you give those people who are just challenge or you're, you know, they're just a challenge right now. Maybe they just had a, they're coming off an awful experience with a client or they're coming off of criticism. What would you say to them?
00:48:15
Speaker
Um, obviously the very cliche thing is like, don't give up, right? Um, I think it just really boils down to, um, remembering why you started in the first place. Um, I've definitely had my fair share of challenges within the last four years. Um, some of them have been very, very public challenges. Some have been really private and then I've chosen to share, you know, snippets about that publicly.
00:48:35
Speaker
with my audience. I like to keep it real on Instagram. I like to talk about the good and the bad, the hard stuff of being an entrepreneur. And I think that what really can keep you going as a small business owner is remembering the why and remembering, okay, going back to that story of like, I remember the Starbucks in short pump of Virginia
00:48:57
Speaker
getting that $250 check from that client and crying in the car because I was so excited. That was part of my why. I was so excited. It didn't matter what that price tag was. I was just so excited that this was the first step towards my dream. So remembering those moments and why you began will really help push you forward when you feel like, okay, the entire world is caving in. I'm doing that entrepreneur up and down.
00:49:19
Speaker
That's gonna happen, right? It's gonna happen over things that are truly terrible. It's gonna happen over things that we're being a bit dramatic about over a wide variety of things, but we have to remember why we even started in the first place.
00:49:32
Speaker
And I think that's great advice and I think people are so, I know we are just grateful that you do share what's on your heart and you do share the challenges that you go through because it's really easy to look at people who are doing well in business, such as yourself, and say, oh man, things are going so well for them. They probably never had an unhappy client.
00:49:51
Speaker
or they probably never had anybody say something that rubbed them the wrong way or whatever it might be. So I know that people out there are super grateful for that. I know that we're grateful for that and so thank you for sharing that. Thank you for asking. Thank you for having me on the podcast. It's been so much fun. And if people want to learn more about you, your million brands, what's the most efficient way for somebody to come and find you?
00:50:19
Speaker
Yeah, so probably the CatchMoyer brand. Just go over to CatchMoyer on Instagram, catchmoyer.com. It'll take you to the other websites if you want to go all around. But that's probably going to be the best way to find me. OK, awesome.
00:50:36
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Brains That Book Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and leaving a review so that others are more likely to find it. For show notes and other resources, visit davianchrista.com.