Whitewed Advise: How to Make the Money YOU Need

Here at Whitewed, I work with engaged couples, wedding venues and suppliers alike, and 13 years in the industry and many thousands of contacts means I have a true and realistic view into how both sides of the industry react, perform, cope, and what their processes, challenges and wins are.

Of course, one of the biggest factors involved in running your business is to do with the money that you make at the end of the month to feed your personal life, lifestyle, business costs, and fund business growth and development.

We can all run a business that makes money, but have you ever got down to the nitty gritty and worked out what you actually NEED to earn to keep the business and yourself afloat, and what you WANT to earn going forwards?

Hands up how many of you get to the end of the month, pay your bills and just settle and take whatever is left for yourself?

If the last 6 months have taught us anything, the need to plan our finances in greater detail is a must, and having a buffer is essential – in fact, it’s recommended that you always have 5 months of funding within your business account to act as a ‘Stability Pot’ – a pot of money that will pay you and your overheads during an emergency situation, such as the pandemic.

Planning how much you need and want to earn is easy, and it’s the best way to be successful as it gives you a goal to work towards and be accountable to throughout the month.

I recommend running a constantly updated ‘Profit & Loss’ spreadsheet – this is where you document all expected / goal income, and all expected outgoings / overheads with a running profit / loss amount at the bottom. This will enable you to easily see how much running your business costs you, and allow you to insert how much you need / want to earn yourself.

Now it’s time to plan how you’re going to earn the money you need.

1: Be realistic about the number of hours you have available to work during the current month – I recommend reviewing this every month, as things can change – e.g. holidays / childcare / events / meetings etc.

Knock off 10% of the hours as these will be used for general business admin – so client liaison, emails, accounting, social media scheduling...

The number of hours you have left is the number of hours you are able to earn. Stick to them, as to reach your earning goal you need to remain focused and work productively in the time that you have available.

2: Go through your client files and work out how much money you expect to come in that month from existing client bookings / sales / events etc. Add that amount to your Profit & Loss spreadsheet and understand the difference.

Now you know how much you need to earn and how many hours you have to do it in.

Next, consider your sales opportunities.

Which of your products / services are your best-sellers, or indeed those that take the least ‘selling’ – put into place a marketing plan to get them ‘out there’ – quite often we forget that we know our products and services inside out and assume everybody else does too – they don’t, and even if they do, they need reminding! Remember that it takes somebody on average 7 times to see the same thing before they commit to it – and ALWAYS have a call to action within every marketing piece of work – whether it’s a link, a 'do this to do that' etc.

Your bestsellers / easy sells are your ‘bread and butter’, you’re confident in them and you should target yourself on how many new sales you’re going to confirm during the month.

Follow this with reviewing your offerings – is there a small new product or service that you can start that’s cheap yet super-effective? Something that takes you very little time etc. to organise, but due to your expertise you can get out quick. It could be something that’s charged at £5 a pop – something that’s easily spent by your clients as it takes very little thought to commit to due to the low cost. Remember if you successfully launch a ‘quick win’ series of products / services, these small amounts will seriously add up very quickly!

If you’re finding that the high cost products / services, the ‘cream’ of your offering aren’t getting much take up, have you considered breaking them down into a new range? Have you considered marketing them differently and seeing what happens with an incentive to book?

On this note, also consider how you could incentivise a current offering – maybe add something in for a limited time that actually impacts very little on your profit bottom line, but will be attractive and generate new interest and bookings.

Are there ways in which you could team up with a fellow Whitewed member and offer mutually beneficial services to your clients; this will increase your standing, but also offer another opportunity to earn more money.

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Ultimately, by having a monthly plan in place you are setting your goals – and goals are achieved as they give you something to work towards – and when you’ve reached the money you need to earn, you can then carry on, take it forward and earn the money you want to earn! You’ll get more confident as each month passes when you see success in your actions and meet your targets!

Run your business with the end money result being in charge, and no longer accept what just comes in and earning whatever’s left after your costs! Decide what YOU want from your business and act accordingly. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact, it’s the right way to do business.

Whilst being in business is led by passion and expertise, it should still make YOU money, and if it doesn’t currently, don’t be afraid to change things up, do things differently and flip things on their head…what’s the worst that can happen – you earn more?! Well that’s a winner to me!

Kindest, 

Natalie Lovett, Director of The Whitewed Directory