How to Scale Your Wedding Business with Hannah Bjorndal
How to Scale Your Wedding Business is a podcast that explores how creative-minded entrepreneurs can build profitable, sustainable businesses through building strong, resilient and long-lasting businesses that are scaleable.
The conversations in each episode focus on how to be intentional and avoid all the common pitfalls when preparing for growth and hiring, training and leading a creative team. Host Hannah Bjorndal focuses on strategies that encourage thriving over surviving and working smarter, not harder.
How to Scale Your Wedding Business with Hannah Bjorndal
5 Ways to Protect Your Business for Long-Term Success
FREE GUIDEBOOK: The 10 Pitfalls of Growing a Creative Team
OVERVIEW
This episode focuses on my top insights on how to protect your business, plan for the future, and handle unexpected events, especially if you're a one-person team.
As small business owners, time and resources are often sparse. Without a reliable team, stepping back from your business could lead to a significant loss of income and potentially tarnish your brand's reputation. This reality comes to life as we discuss the personal anecdote of a photographer who unexpectedly fell pregnant during a busy season. We dive into the repercussions of this incident and how it impacted her brand's reputation. Real-life stories like these highlight the importance of creating a supportive business structure for women looking to start families while maintaining their careers.
Finally, we turn the spotlight on the benefits and downfalls of being a solo business owner. How do you ensure your business thrives when you're steering the ship alone? We answer this by exploring practical steps and sharing resources to help build the right team for your business. Whether you're contemplating maternity leave, or just pondering ways to safeguard your business for the future, this episode promises to equip you with the right tools to build a secure and stable business. Tune in and fortify your business strategy.
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A few years ago I took a personality assessment called the Highlands Battery Assessment. It's a career aptitude test that measures different types of skills and performance levels of an individual and the results give you insight into your personality, motivation, your learning style, how you problem solve, how you make decisions and a lot of other really interesting data. I took this because Evan, my husband, was also taking it and that gave me an opportunity to take it at the same time. So I thought, why not? It could be helpful in thinking forward in my career, learning more about myself. I always love a personality test, guys, I don't know about you. So I thought maybe I can learn a little bit more about what my natural gifts are, my natural disposition, even how I learn best, that kind of thing. So there were maybe 25 to 30 different categories and they're rated on standard deviations compared to the general public. So if you've seen a standard deviation bell curve before, it's 1 to 99. So one of the categories that the Highlands identifies is something called timeframe, which is a measure of a person's natural sense of the amount of time that you should be thinking about when you're considering the future. So a low timeframe number means you are maybe only thinking about tomorrow or the next week when thinking about future planning and a really large number on the opposite side of the scale means you think and act based on consideration of years and years and years into the future. So my result on this test is that I am in the 99th percentile for a timeframe. I think really far into the future constantly. I make decisions, large and small, with the distant future in mind, which totally checks out for me when I think about how I've approached my life and my business.
Speaker 1:In the first year of shooting weddings, I was really young. I wasn't married yet and I had already started thinking what do I do if I get married and then I decide I want to start a family? How is that going to work for my business? Again, keep in mind I had photographed like two weddings ever at this point. But I thought if I step out of the wedding industry and take extended time off one, what happens to clients who booked me in that amount of time? Do I cancel on them? Are they going to be upset? What do I do? And I also thought am I really going to be able to step back into the industry just like that, even only two weddings in to shooting weddings and starting a business.
Speaker 1:I could see that the building of marketing strategies and brand that took time and I was already having concerns about what if I take a break and all of that goes away. So, even though I was new in the industry, I had started to see a few people that were photographers just take time off a maternity leave, and I guess I just thought they hoped to get pregnant at a time of year that was convenient and wouldn't mean missing a bunch of wedding work. But even then my mind was considering all the different possibilities. What if there are complications? What if my future child has special needs or health issues when they're born? What if my body needs a longer time to recover than I anticipate? What if we're not able to plan around a schedule or time of year and I have a due date in the middle of busy season? So hopefully you're not listening to this right now and thinking Hannah is insane. Why was she thinking about that so so far in the future? And again, that's really a big part of my personality and how I plan for things and how I do things, and I think there's a lot of advantages to that.
Speaker 1:All these thoughts were spinning around in my mind and at the same time, I did start to see women closing their businesses after starting a family, or just really struggling to get back into the industry after taking a longer time off. So my 99 percentile timeframe brain was thinking what happens if you do close your business? What happens afterwards? What if my family is dependent on my income? That sounds so stressful. What am I even doing starting this business? So, again, I was years away from ever having to really think about that or make that decision, and my business was barely off the ground, let alone thriving. But I was already thinking about the dangers of being in this business and wanting to safeguard myself and my business against a train wreck in my future.
Speaker 1:Now, just a side note I really hope that as you hear this, you're not like me and stressing out hearing this. Let me put your mind at ease that this is what this episode is all about. I want to talk about how do you protect your business against those worries and stresses of what happens if something changes in my life and I need to take time off, among many other things. That's what we're talking about today. I'm here for you. I want to help you protect your business in the best way possible, and if you have a timeframe that maybe isn't as far out as mine maybe it's on the other side of the scale that's okay too. I'm glad you're here. Let's think through how to protect your business and be proactive, even if it isn't your natural inclination to plan that far in advance.
Speaker 1:So for me personally, growing my team was actually in my plans almost from day one, and that's exactly what I've done. I have a team of five amazing people and at the time of recording this I'm just getting back from six weeks abroad in our busy season and I only probably worked about five hours each week on my photography wedding side of the business, and that was actually by choice, it wasn't a necessity. One more thing I got to say this is a spoiler alert I do not have children and I'm not sure if I ever will. It's almost comical that I've spent so much time team building to set myself up to be in the perfect position to take extended maternity leave without losing income, and I'm not even sure if I'll ever end up needing time off or wanting time off for that reason. But that's what started it all and I'm really glad because here we are, almost 10 years later, and I've set my business up in a way that is so secure and stable, even if, for some reason, I'm unable to work for a longer amount of time. We're going to be okay and the business is going to keep thriving.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about how to protect your business. You're listening to Team Building for Creative Business Owners, a podcast dedicated to helping you scale your creative business through building a team. I'm your host, hannah Bjorndahl, owner of LaVian Rose, an expert in all things team building in the creative artistic world. Over the past several years, I've gone from being a one woman show to leading a team of amazing people to serve more clients, dramatically increase our business income and ultimately make a much bigger impact in the world, and I'm passionate about helping you do the same. So let's do it.
Speaker 1:There is a lot of hesitation around growing a team based on fear of change. You're opening yourself up to potential threats to your business when you add a new team member. What's missing from this conversation is asking another question what are the threats to your business if you don't grow a team, especially if you're dependent on your business's income and or you have others who are dependent on you. It's absolutely crucial to evaluate all the potential threats to your business and then safeguard yourself against them. Not only that, but you want to set yourself up to be able to make decisions that are good for your personal life in the future, knowing those decisions, which may mean changes to your business, won't endanger the success of your business. So we're going to talk about five different ways that adding team members will help protect your business and yourself, and here's a quick preview of those five. We're going to talk about time, diversity, income stability, passion and impact. So let's dive right into number one Team members. Protect yourself and your business by protecting your time.
Speaker 1:You've probably heard it said many times that time is your most valuable resource and as small business owners, you wear many hats. Actually, you wear all the hats. If you're the only person working in your business right now, this means that you're limited in how much you can do. You can only do a certain amount of work for clients or only take on a certain number of clients, because you as an individual have a max capacity. For most of us in the wedding industry, we can only work with one client per date, and there are a limited number of wedding dates each year, so that automatically limits the total amount of work you can do. Also, your time, your ability to give time to your clients that's your entire value. So it's not scalable when it's just you. You can't exponentially increase how many clients you're working with and what you're doing for them.
Speaker 1:Now this is a limitation more than a danger to your business at the beginning. Here's when it becomes a danger. If, for one reason or another, you have to step back, you can't do the work. It could be an injury or an unexpected illness, it could be a family crisis, it could be a pregnancy, like we talked about before, or it could just be extreme burnout and a desperate need for a break because you're not able to do your best work for your clients. The minute you step back from your business without team members, your business can no longer generate income, you no longer get a paycheck and a lot of these things that may cause you to take a pause or step back. They're out of your control Not all of them, but a lot of them. You might not even see them coming and by the time you do, there probably isn't going to be enough time to start bringing on team members and get them fully ready to fill your shoes when the time comes. The result is not only a significant loss of most, if not all, of your income, but you also risk your brand's reputation going downhill.
Speaker 1:A quick example story, one you've probably heard before here it is A photographer gets pregnant unexpectedly and is due right in the middle of their busy season. Not wanting to lose income because they're dependent on it, they hire out contractors to fill in what is commonly referred to as an associate shooter, and that associate is chosen based off of a sample portfolio and maybe some feedback or reviews from one or two others that have worked with them, and that's about it. So the end result is that the clients are a little bit confused and upset about what feels like a bait and switch. They've paid for a personality and brand and they're getting something totally different. Not only that, but the associate's personality and behavior is totally inconsistent with what the clients are expecting. The clients are really angry because they don't like the way this associate is behaving. They were already primed to be frustrated by it, and so even a little misstep ends up feeling like a major problem. You don't have to be fully inside this story to know what happens next. The clients are going to hate their photos before they even see them. So does this sound familiar? I'm guessing you've heard a story like this before, whether from a friend of yours or someone in a networking group you're in or a Facebook group, or maybe you've even experienced this. So let's get real and step into the shoes of the client for a second. Can you really blame them for being upset about this situation?
Speaker 1:Wedding photography is such a massive investment and most of the time clients are paying for a brand reputation, especially when we're talking about high-end or luxury weddings. The client has been sold on the brand. If you're doing a good job at marketing, you're selling your client on your brand and seeing an unfamiliar face and working with someone whose personality doesn't perfectly align with what they're expecting. That's really stressful and it's also incredibly disappointing. The experience that you paint for your client of what it's going to be like to work with you. The better of a job you do marketing yourself, the more the client is going to be excited for that specific experience working with you and your brand. So the experience of stress, disappointment, feeling like they got a bait and switch, even if the photos are absolutely stunning. That experience has been totally flipped and the clients are just going to be thinking about how the situation made them feel when they see their photos. So not every situation like this ends this way, but I share this story because this is a common practice within the wedding industry. Like I said, you've probably seen stories like this or heard about them. They're very common and a lot of times business owners can't quite figure out why their clients are so angry. They must just be unreasonable, tends to be the conclusion.
Speaker 1:It's easy to feel defensive as a business owner if you feel backed into a corner by your situation. You don't want to lose the income, but you also can't photograph the wedding or do the work that you've agreed to do. So you're stuck and you need to make the best of it. But the best of it might be a really upset client. So here's the danger, if it's not already obvious this is your brand's reputation that you're putting on the line. In a situation like that, one nasty client experience can really negatively impact your ability to book new clients and maintain a strong brand reputation. Brand reputation, as you already know, takes years to build, but it doesn't take that much to ruin it. So it absolutely is not worth risking that reputation in situations like this. Not only that, but you also want to consider do you want to be the kind of business that sends someone out who isn't fully integrated into your brand, on a wedding day to a client who has put their trust in you? It's really challenging because, without a team in place, taking an extended break of any kind and or not showing up for your clients in the way they were expecting it presents a huge danger to your company's reputation.
Speaker 1:To contrast this situation within my own company, one of my top priorities has been to create a culture and business structure that supports women who want to grow their families while also having a fulfilling and meaningful career. For our clients, this means that they understand from the start of our working relationship that someone on the team is always going to be on call on their wedding day, should something happened to the team lead photographer who they booked. This allows our clients to rest at ease that if someone gets pregnant on the team, or even if someone just comes down with COVID the night before their wedding, they will have a LaVian Rose team photographer who's fully capable to shoot their wedding day on call to step in and they know that as a team, we're cohesive, we've learned and grown together and we've built the brand in a way to emphasize how crucial teamwork is and that our team is that cohesive group that they can trust. Obviously, we want our couples to work with the photographer they selected when booking, because that's who they've been building a relationship with. However, we've now been through a handful of circumstances where the person on call really did need to be prepared to step in, and it's actually a selling point to our clients that they have this extra layer of security when booking us. They aren't going to miss out on the LaVian Rose experience if, for some reason, their photographer is unable to shoot their wedding day.
Speaker 1:It's important to recognize that some things really are out of our control. Something could happen to you to prevent you from being able to work with your client, and this is true of anyone who is in weddings or event-based work where they have to be there on the day of and it only happens once. It's true for every single business owner in that situation, and we're all human. So being prepared for that protects you, your business and your clients. Now, what about if you are just overloaded and you're not being forced to take a break. You just prefer to take a break. You're taking preventative measures, then, to ensure that you don't burn out. If you want to do this without losing income again, you need team members to keep the business going.
Speaker 1:With a great team in place, extended time off is actually incredibly attainable. This past summer, evan and I took a six-week trip. It was a sabbatical from my regular work and we went to Europe. For me, this was right on the front edge of our busy wedding season. I got back in mid-September and things were in full swing. I spent a full month of that trip in London working on non-wedding projects. Specifically, I was working on rebooting this podcast and building a course for you. Then I had nearly two additional weeks on top of that of just true vacation in Greece. I communicated with my team pretty minimally and they knew I wouldn't be very available for them In that timeframe that I was gone. We had eight weddings booked, so my team shot eight weddings while I wasn't even in the same country. It was pretty amazing. Now I started building my team at the beginning of 2018 and at the time of this recording, we're nearing the end of 2023.
Speaker 1:This level of being able to disconnect didn't happen overnight, however. We weathered a pandemic in that time. I had a full client load for most of those years and I made so many mistakes and was stubborn about giving up some of my unnecessary and time-consuming habits around my work. I think that the really crucial work happened between 2020 and 2022 to really allow me to be in this position that I am now. It's really two intentional years of work, but here we are and I am able to completely step away for an extended time, and that's really rewarding on multiple levels. So how do you plan to protect your business from the possibility or desire of extended time off or extended time not being able to do client work? Is this something that you've thought about? Because in your life sometimes those extended periods of time off are going to be necessary. The best way to protect your business and your time is to have a solid team.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the next thing on my list, number two diversity. Building a team allows you to have more diversity, which will ultimately strengthen and protect your business. So diversity that word can mean a lot of different things. Let me explain how I'm using the term here. I'm talking about any amount of differences in thoughts, opinions, outlook, the way of doing things Basically just having different human beings. And the more people you have, the more you get this diversity, which means more brain power, broader life experiences, more ideas and more than that. This type of diversity makes your company stronger.
Speaker 1:It's tempting as a business owner to think that we always know what's best for our company and our clients and to not trust other people with this work. Not only that, but we can be a little bit arrogant. At least I'm speaking for myself. I don't know if you can relate about our own abilities and miss the fact that other people can contribute diverse skill sets and ideas. That will actually make the company much stronger, because different people are going to have different strengths and skill sets than you do. There is so much that goes into keeping your company strong, your client list full, your marketing strategies sharp and effective, and the more people you have to contribute their individual experience, the more you're going to be able to ensure the success of your company.
Speaker 1:Particularly if you've been running your business for a long time several years it's very easy for your ways of doing things to get a little bit dated or stale, and you don't even necessarily have to realize that it's happening, for it to be happening. This has actually happened to me multiple times as I've been growing my team, and I'm still somehow always surprised when one of my team members brings up a suggestion or new idea that I think is absolutely genius and I've never thought of it before. It always surprises me that I'm not the first one to think of a good idea. That sounds terrible, but maybe you could relate to that too. We've been able to create a much better experience for our clients and vendor partners because we're constantly contributing ideas as a team and having a lot of different minds. Thinking about the same thing is a lot stronger than just one person, and this is not just about growth, although that has absolutely happened for us. We've been able to grow a lot faster as a result of a diverse set of opinions and ideas, but it's also added so much more security to the business because I have a whole team of people keeping a careful watch on our processes, our client experience and even just the quality of our work.
Speaker 1:Something I've appreciated in particular lately has been my team's ability to contribute to keeping our ideas modern and fresh without falling too much into a cookie cutter pattern or way of doing things. Consistency is incredibly important in wedding photography, but if consistency becomes the ultimate thing, the art becomes a little stale and dated really quickly. Sometimes I pick up on what's new in the industry really easily, but then there are other things that my team will point out that I totally miss and I'd probably continue to miss without their input. This kind of teamwork and refining as a group has made our company a lot stronger and more stable, like I said before, which has protected us because it's allowed us to keep a consistent brand but also stay up to date and modern, so that we don't miss out on the cutting edge of what's going on in the wedding industry. Even the smartest people in the world have blind spots. A team allows you to cover one another's blind spots and refine each other as you grow to be better and better at what you do.
Speaker 1:So next let's talk about number three income and profit. Building a team allows you to protect and stabilize your income. It's not just about the bottom line, but team members can and will be directly related to increased income if you grow your team the right way. I don't just mean the total gross income either, because if your business is making more but you're paying yourself less. That's not really a success. I'm talking about increased profit. I think everyone likes the idea of more money, but when it comes to protecting your business, having a larger margin means that you can invest back into your business when you need to, without straining your personal income or getting into a tight spot.
Speaker 1:The ability to invest back into your business is a way to protect your business, because it allows you to make those decisions to spend on what you know will make your business stronger and better, without a fear of will there be enough. And not only that. We all know that sometimes big necessary purchases or expenses for your business just going to pop up without warning. Increased income for your business means more safety and security. In these moments, you have more of a buffer For our own business. This increased income has meant that we can invest in larger projects and ideas without me having to worry about whether or not I'll be getting a pay check at the end of each month. As I'm recording this, we're actually about to open a studio like a brick and mortar space, which will have a large space for shoots. It'll have several offices, a co-working area and more. I never would have been able to do this without putting everything at risk if I didn't have a team. So the income and profit is both proactive and being able to invest in more for your business, and it also protects against the unexpected financial difficulties or needs that pop up when you least expect them, by giving you more overall to work with financially. Let's move on to number four passion. Your business will be more protected from burnout and you will be more able to retain the passion you have for your work if you have a team.
Speaker 1:Protection from burnout, which unfortunately can be so detrimental to a business, is a reality that most creative business owners face, and it often comes faster than you expect. Maybe you yourself have experienced some burnout already in your business. The terrible thing about burnout is that there's really nothing you can do to just snap out of it. Even if you're good at hiding it, it will eventually show in your work and it's going to affect your energy to be able to work on anything else in your business as well. I think that in the creative wedding industry and I don't have any specific facts or figures to back this up, it's really just my own experience but I think in the creative wedding industry.
Speaker 1:Burnout is probably a top contributor to why businesses end up closing. I personally have seen that happen with a lot of business owners. What ends up happening is you've been stretched too thin and you either just totally give up your work or your work suffers so greatly that no one wants to work with you anymore. This is a really tough subject and if you have been through a season of burnout, I'm so sorry. I personally have been through seasons of burnout as well, and one in particular really brought me to a breaking point. Thankfully, I was able to immediately stop booking weddings for myself in that moment, and I knew my team would be able to keep booking their own weddings. Now, unfortunately, it took about a year to be able to get through all the weddings on my books, but honestly, having a team through that time while I was continuing to shoot it made things so much better. I felt encouraged and inspired and even when I wasn't saying or acknowledging my burnout directly, just having trusted team members around me, it really did lift me up and, equally as important, I knew that a break was coming and that my business wasn't going to fall behind as a result. That felt really amazing and spurred me on to want to pour even more into my team, and it really contrasted a season of burnout I had had several years before when I didn't have a team, and that season really pushed me to start a team for this very reason.
Speaker 1:So having a team of people around you protects you from burnout or the resulting effects of burnout, by allowing you to be particular about the work you do take on, and if you start to feel yourself burning out, your team will be able to catch you. You can encourage one another. It also sharpens your creative abilities and protects you creatively not just from burnout, but also from isolation. It is wonderful to have frienders or people in your network or industry who do what you do, that you trust and that you can share with. Those can be really sweet friendships and I have some of them myself. But you are, at the end of the day, working on different teams and you may even be competing for the same clients with these people, but when you have team members, you're able to cheer one another on and encourage each other in the work that you're doing. You're on the same team. This has allowed me to feel excited about shooting weddings again, and I've also been able to step back a little bit and I take on so much less now than I used to, and I know for a fact that a team can also do this for you.
Speaker 1:Finally, let's talk about number five impact Building a team protects your business from fading into the background and ensures a true impact. So this one is maybe the most difficult to explain or understand. It might feel kind of intangible. So let's get into the details. Impact means a lot of things. I commonly refer to it as a way to make a positive difference in the world through your business, but for the sake of this specifically, even more broadly, impact has to do with how the industry that you are in in the world is different because your business is in it. Your business isn't necessarily an immediate danger if you're not making a large impact just this moment, but it is a lot easier to fade into the background or lose touch when your impact is, overall, smaller.
Speaker 1:Adding to your team allows you to reach a larger audience and you are also able to naturally mix closely with other social circles that those team members have. Your brand can therefore become more widely recognized and known just by nature of having more people, the expanding community and resulting expanding impact, give you more of a presence and create long term stability. And the people on your team don't have to be super well connected for this to be the case. Just having different people on your team talking to different people in the industry, working with different clients, that achieves that. You have more people to make more of an impact.
Speaker 1:So, like I said before, this might feel a little bit intangible to you or like it doesn't actually matter, and I get that. You may feel like you already have a pretty strong brand and it doesn't need to get any bigger or more secure, but for those of you with big dreams of growing and becoming a top player in your industry, this is a primary way to do it. You will always be in a lot more danger of losing your impact if it's just you. You can probably see that in all the other reasons we've talked about so far in this episode. So if impact matters to you which, if you want to keep growing, it definitely should Then it's worth understanding the risks of being a business of one and the difficulty you'll face in making a large impact long term if it continues to just be you. Okay, so this has all been a lot of information, and it can feel a little bit heavy or maybe stressful if you don't currently have a team and you're seeing the reality of this in your own business. I want you to leave this episode feeling excited and empowered to protect your business. So let's talk about some simple action steps you can take today, even if you don't currently have anyone on your team.
Speaker 1:First step to take Consider each of these five things we just talked about and write out the specific ways that you see this applying to your own business. I encourage you, with this step, to be brutally honest with yourself. The more honest you are, the better you'll be able to ensure that your business thrives long term. Next, consider what you want out of your life. It's a big question, right, and notice that I didn't say what you want out of your business. No, we are looking at this even more big picture. So consider for a moment what your ideal life looks like. And even better, if you write this down, come back to it, refine it, make it into an official statement or mantra.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to get into more details about writing a personal vision statement in this episode, but if you want help in casting that vision for your life so that you can get clear on the path forward for your business. You can check out handofyorncom slash vision for a free workbook resource that I have for you and I'll link that in the description as well. So really consider what you want out of life and then think about what this means for your business. This is going to help clarify which points of vulnerability in your business are most crucial, and it will also help you know exactly what you do and don't want to get out of your business, both financially and in personal fulfillment. Finally, consider what types of team members would help fill those roles that would allow you to protect your business and allow it to thrive as well. Get really clear on all the different roles that they'll fill and then set a deadline for yourself when do you need to make your very first hire? Or, if you already have team members and are seeing that you need to add even more, when do you need to make your next hire?
Speaker 1:Like I said, this was a lot of information today, and I know that growing a team can feel like a complete impossibility. It's too overwhelming, there's too many unknowns. Well, this is something that I know a lot about and that I'm passionate about. I love talking about team building because there's such a need and so little resources for team building in the wedding industry and, honestly, in the creative entrepreneurship world in general. I've created a team building course for you If this is something that you're interested in learning about, if this is something that you really need help with, you want to build a team and you want to do it the right way.
Speaker 1:I don't have an official launch date for you yet, but if this is of interest to you, shoot me an email info at hannahbjornedollcom or send me a DM on Instagram at hannahbjornedoll. If it's an email, in the subject line write the word team and I will put you on my short VIP list so that you have the first opportunity to sign up for this course before it fills up. I also hope you'll continue to tune into this podcast. I have so much to share about building a team in the next several weeks and months. It's something that really excites me and that I really want you to be able to do. Well, and that's a wrap. Thanks so much for listening to team building for creative business owners. I hope you learned something new that you can use to grow and thrive. If you're interested in getting in touch, send me a message at info at hannahbjornedollcom, or you can always shoot me a DM on Instagram. I'm at hannahbjornedoll. I'll see you back here next week.