A new year always brings excitement for what there is to come. From big dreams and financial goals to personal milestones! And if one of your dreams is to grow a team, it can be both exciting and overwhelming. As a wedding planner or coordinator, you can do only so many weddings every year. And before you know it, you might be at max capacity looking to add on a team to help you get more done and even plan more events.
But where do you even get started? The answer: audit your systems! Your systems, workflows, and SOP’s are the backbone of your business. And without these running smoothly and efficiently, adding a team can be daunting. By having systems in place, you will have more confidence in your client journey and process and feel ready to train your team members.
Even if a team isn’t on your radar yet, or something you are dreaming up 2-3 years from now, it’s imperative your systems and processes are in place now.
Your Workflow Systems
A workflow for each of your services is essential to running a wedding planning business. A workflow is the process and steps you do for every single service you offer, from start to finish. When you have systems in place, you are more productive. And when you’re more productive, you spend less time on each task and have the potential to make more money and book more clients. Plus, it sets your clients up for a better client experience!
When auditing your current workflow, look at the complete client journey. From the inquiry and onboarding phase to the pre-planning, planning and post-wedding phases – it’s important to create steps for everything you want to do with every new client.
- Inquiry: What happens when someone lands in your inbox? What are the next steps and things you need to send?
- Onboarding: When a client says yes to your services, do you have a quick and easy onboarding process?
- Pre-Planning: What are the biggest things your clients need to know about working with you? Are there set due dates for tasks? What programs do you use? How can they book meetings with you, how many do they get and when do they begin?
- Planning: What is the planning process like? Do you use a platform to plan or have automated systems in place? Do you send client gifts throughout the process?
- Post Planning: Just because the wedding is over doesn’t mean your job is done! Do you have a process for asking for testimonials? I suggest sending one email with direct links to multiple review sites.
When we get in the thick of a wedding season, we can rely on our workflows to remind us of both big and small things we need to do. And it ensures we don’t forget big items, like client gifts or due dates!
Dreaming of growing your team?
Having a workflow you’re confident in will help you train new team members more efficiently! You will be able to walk them through the process you take your clients through. They’ll feel your confidence and be excited to implement on behalf of your business. It will also ensure that the process is done the same for every client, regardless of which team member handles it.
Business Templates
As a wedding planner, you are often writing our outlining the same things over and over again. So stop writing them from scratch each time! From email templates to document templates, having a system in place for everything you create or collect from clients will save you hours (and make sure you don’t miss anything!).
When it comes to templates, there are a few different ways to make them. You can create your own based on what you have done in the past. Or you can purchase someone else’s templates, like my 43 Email Template Bundle!
Another option is to use a CRM system, like Honeybook, to automate your templates. From gathering client information to invoicing to keeping the planning process on track, Honeybook does it all.
- Frequently Sent Emails: You can have email templates pre-written and ready to go. You can add these right into Gmail as a canned template or even a draft you copy and paste each time. You can also add many of these into your CRM system like Honeybook, and let them automatically go out. To make this even easier, I have a 43 Email Template Bundle that you can buy and swipe my copy for communicating with both your clients and their vendors!
- Contracts: These should be preloaded in your CRM so that your client can quickly sign digitally. There is no need to mail a contract or have your client print it out, sign, scan and email it back to you! A CRM like Honeybook allows clients (and you!) to digitally sign, making this step take seconds.
- Timelines and Ceremony Processions: These can be easily reused again and again and just updated for individual timelines. Looking for a quick solution? I have 6 Ceremony Processional Templates inside my shop! This collection of 6 ceremony procession templates includes 3 example processions with two song changes and three example processions with three song changes, all with different scenarios and details a couple may have chosen to include (or not include) in their wedding ceremony.
- Onsite Details: There are a lot of similar items that each wedding requires onsite. You can easily template this checklist so that you can keep track of client details as they’re determined. If you work at frequent venues repeatedly, you can create a custom one for the top venues, so you can remember which one provides what items. That is why I created my Game Day Playbook (AKA: Onsite Details) that my team and I come armed with every wedding day.
Dreaming of growing your team?
When you have templates in place, it provides new team members with clarity and ease to do their job. It helps give them guidance and parameters and ultimately creates brand consistency so that everyone on your team is producing similar results.
Client Templates and Systems
Just like the backend of your business, many of your client-facing items can also be templated!
- Welcome Guides: This way, your clients know what they can expect in working with you and your team. You can answer some of their most burning questions after first booking with you, and any FAQs they have at this stage. It also lets you lay out the process for them so they know what to expect at every stage.
- Mood Boards and Design Templates: One of my favorite programs for this is Canva! You can easily create a Canva template and just drop in the colors and inspirational images without opening Photoshop. Creating Mood Boards will now take minutes instead of hours!
- Client Checklists: Wedding planning can be stressful for clients, even with a coordinator or full planner. So make sure you have client checklists so they know what to expect. Everyone loves to check things off a list, including our clients!
Dreaming of growing your team?
As you bring on a team, and even associate planners, having templated client communication items will make working with clients a breeze! It will also ensure that everything is on brand and represents your business well.
SOP’s
SOPs, or Standard Operating Procedures, should be the backbone of your planning business. These are written outlines of every step of a process. It spells it all out – from start to finish! SOPs makes it easy to keep all processes consistent with each client while also allowing you to have others on your team do the same process (and know it will be done correctly!)
Dreaming of growing your team?
Bringing on new team members is much easier when you have SOP’s in place. It provides a concrete plan you can use as you train them on your processes. It also gives them the confidence they need to take on projects since they know they have a system to follow that has already been laid out.
Quick Tip: As you add team members, you may need to update and adjust SOP’s and your workflows. Take a look at your SOP’s every year, to ensure they are up to date and working seamlessly.
Review Your Budget and Cash-Flow
It’s important to check in on your budget regularly! This helps you determine if you need to pull back on anything or have room to invest in your business. I check our numbers inside Honeybook and Quickbooks every single month but do an even deeper dive each quarter. Quickbooks is a must-have for any business owner. It lets you track everything in your business and create reports to see how you’re doing each month. Plus, all the reports are quick and easy to pull and hand off to your CPA come tax time!
Dreaming of growing your team?
Knowing your numbers is one of the biggest pieces of the hiring puzzle. Not only does it allow you to see where you can grow, but it helps you create financial goals to grow your dream team. When you start to grow a team, you will most likely need to raise your pricing to accommodate that outgoing salary or pay. So by keeping a close eye on your cash flow and budget, you can better determine when (and who) you will hire!
Audit Your Systems to Grow Your Wedding Planning Business
By auditing your systems, you can start to gauge if you are ready to hire a team or need to do a few more things before you get started. Keep in mind that your team doesn’t need to always be full-time! You can start with a part-time assistant to get started, or even look into outsourcing some backend tasks to free up your time.
As you start to make these big decisions, look into getting a coach! As a coach for wedding coordinators and planners, I offer two programs to help you get to that next level. Whether that level is a team or simply working on systems, I can coach you through it! My 90-Day Coaching Program is for the wedding planner craving 1:1 business coaching to get to that next level. Interested in learning more – learn more here!
