Show notes:

Are you ready to start scaling your wedding business to new heights? Today I am chatting with the founder and CEO of the Gilchrist collection -Samantha Gilchrist. It’s one of the most inspiring conversations I have ever had as she shares her journey from wedding photographer to owner of 12 wedding venues in the UK and USA.

Find out more about the Gilchrist Collection

Follow Samantha on Instagram

Time Stamps:

00:00 – Evaluating Team Performance in Small Businesses

01:01 – The Journey to Wedding Photography

12:04 – Transitioning from Photography to Venue Ownership

29:15 – Transitioning to Multiple Venues

36:03 – Expanding Horizons: Entering the American Wedding Market

Transcript:

Samantha
00:00:00.480 – 00:00:23.520
Really, really, really important to constantly be evaluating the people that work for you. And I think particularly in a small business and a growing business, it’s really hard to differentiate the fact that you are the CEO.

And as much as you might love this person to pieces at the end of the day, are they creating the best product for you or could someone be doing it better?

Becca
00:00:25.600 – 00:01:16.480
I’m Becca Poutney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger and you’re listening to the Wedding Pros who Are Ready podcast. I’m here to share with you actionable tips, strategies and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.

If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you love, then you’re in the right place. Let’s get going with today’s episode, I’m chatting with Samantha Gilchrist, CEO of the Gilchrist Collection.

The Gilchrist Collection comprises of 12 exclusive used wedding venues across the UK and the USA. Having spent 12 years photographing weddings, in 2017, she took a huge leap into the world of venues.

How did that happen and what has she learned on the journey? Well, that’s what we’re going to be talking about today and I cannot wait to find out more. Sam, welcome to the podcast.

Samantha
00:01:16.959 – 00:01:18.400
Thank you so much for having me.

Becca
00:01:19.360 – 00:01:49.510
I am really excited to have you on the podcast because I’ve seen you from afar. I know of your businesses, I know of people who work in your businesses, but I’ve never really known very much about your story.

And so today I’m hoping to find out a little bit more about how someone can go from being a photographer to basically working across 12 venues and owning them all over the world. So we’re going to get there. But let’s go back a little bit into history. How did you end up in the wedding industry in the first place?

As a photographer?

Samantha
00:01:50.710 – 00:04:21.990
Yes. That’s quite far back. So I think it was 2001, maybe 2002.

I went to London College of Fashion and I did a course in styling and I wanted to be a fashion stylist and they happened to have photography as part of the course. So it was a styling and photography course and I enjoyed the photography, but I really thought I was going to go into the fashion world.

And after the course I went into the fashion world and was like, no, this is not for me for various reasons and truth be told, I actually ran out of money. So. So I ended up getting a job in human resources, worked there for about three years.

Very long story short, my uncle was very ill and he basically had said to me and my cousin, go and do something that you love for the rest of your life. And I’d been dabbling with photography. Me and my dad had been out to take some pictures, and I kind of just.

I had one of those funny mornings where I was walking to work the next morning after speaking with my uncle, and I was like, no, I’m done. I hate working human resources. And I quit my job. And they said, what are you going to do? And I said, oh, I’m going to be a photographer.

And they were like, do you even own a camera? And I was like, no. So fair enough. Yeah. So the next day I went to see my friend’s dad, who I knew had some cameras and asked if I could borrow one.

And I got a job in a boarding school four evenings a week so that I was able to sustain my income. And I started a photography business. And I think it was about.

I mean, I just grabbed anyone’s child I could and was like, let me photograph your child and see if I can create a portfolio. I mean, honestly, I was God awful. And so after about a month or two, someone asked me if I wanted to shadow them on a wedding.

And I went and did my first wedding with them. And I loved it. I’d always been interested in weddings. When I was a kid, I was a bridesmaid way too many times.

And then when I was a teen, I, you know, spent a lot of time drawing wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses because honestly, I wanted my mom to get married. And this was a way that she was like, okay, let’s stop giving me a hard time about getting married. Like, go and draw and be creative.

You know, I grew up in a very creative house, so I felt like when you look back through history, weddings was always going to be my calling. I just didn’t really realize until I started in the photography.

Becca
00:04:22.310 – 00:04:41.220
I think we’ve already learned something about you, and I think this is going to be a common theme throughout the episode. That is, you just decide you want to do something and you just go for it. So you decided you’re going to quit your job and become a photographer.

Most people would think that was crazy, but actually you decide to do it and then you took the steps to make it happen and presumably you made a success of it.

Samantha
00:04:41.380 – 00:05:38.510
So I’m missing. There’s a part of my makeup that most people have that I just. It didn’t, I didn’t get it.

And it is the self doubt in terms of I can’t do it and I, I don’t know if that’s to do with how well it could be many reasons but for me I was just like well I’ve got nothing to lose so why not just start a photography business?

And then when it came to the venues I was like well I’ve got nothing to lose, why not get the first venue with my friend which I’m sure we’ll delve into in a minute. And then when it was like well let’s get more, it was like well why not?

And I know that that’s something that a lot of the time people are like how do you sleep? And I’m like quite well, thank you, how do you sleep? And they’re like not as well as you clearly. Yeah, I just miss that.

I missed that Gene I think which is it’s definitely worked well in my favour.

Becca
00:05:38.830 – 00:06:09.630
Yeah And I think actually that is the thing that can often differentiate successful people from people that sort of stay stuck is themselves is that self doubt thing, is that thing of believing it’s not possible or talking themselves out of doing something before they’ve done it.

I mean I definitely have it myself to a lesser degree than you in that I’m just like I’ll just come up with the idea and I’ll make it happen and then worry about it later. And my husband is often saying to me did you actually think about this before you told everyone?

And I say well if I stopped and thought about it too long I.

Samantha
00:06:09.630 – 00:06:33.500
Wouldn’T do it a hundred percent. And you know that doesn’t mean that everything I’ve ever jumped into has worked out perfectly.

Some things you jump into it and you’re like yeah, I can do this. And then you’re halfway in and you’re like there’s a really stupid idea and you have to sort of turn around and go and do something else.

So I do think as well it’s knowing when you know you’ve tried something and it worked and you’ve tried something and actually it didn’t work. So now you need to do a little bit of a U turn on it.

Becca
00:06:33.500 – 00:07:02.280
I think the other thing that’s important to note as well at this point, even just talking about the photography part is yes, there’s that bit of you that says I’m just going to give everything up and become a wedding photographer. But it doesn’t just happen magically. I think sometimes people are looking for a magic answer.

What follows that belief is Then hard work and learning and education and investment and people. And you clearly then taken those things and you haven’t just gone, I’m going to be a photographer. You thought, I’m going to be a photographer.

How do I make that happen?

Samantha
00:07:02.360 – 00:09:01.490
And sacrifice, honestly, sacrifice is the biggest thing. For me, it was.

That’s what, that’s what I find different between entrepreneurs and people who are able to start businesses and people who can’t push that bit further. You know, for me to set up my photography business, I had to sacrifice all of my evenings to go and work in the school, in the boarding school.

I also sacrificed my weekends because all weekend I would then be trying to do everything I could to get the business off the ground whilst everyone else was going to the pub or going to birthdays or, you know, I’ve missed a number of friends weddings, which was, you know, for me, devastating because obviously I had booked other people’s weddings in advance, but it was just like, okay, well just make the most of it. Like, I need to build this business. And I spent probably about the first five years building the business.

I ended up having, you know, I had a boxing contract photographing boxing, which was wild. And I did about 10 shows a year.

And again it came about because I’d taken a photo of an ex boyfriend who, you know, was dressed up like a boxer for his personal training poster. I don’t even know.

Anyway, someone saw it on his Facebook and phoned me and said, oh, hey, how much to use your picture for a poster for our new boxing show? And I was like, well, who’s photographing the show? And he said, no one.

And I said, well, give me the rights to show and I’ll give you the rights to the picture. And he said, great. And so, you know, but then it was suddenly, then it was like, okay, well how do you photograph boxing? I’m absolutely no idea.

Anyways, that also took a hot minute to figure out how to photograph boxing. And then the first show was, I mean, luckily it was their first show as well, so there wasn’t too much pressure on them being amazing.

But, you know, seven years in then I’m producing incredible, amazing boxing photos. But, you know, I’m not gonna lie, I don’t recommend doing that.

Becca
00:09:03.090 – 00:09:18.190
No, I don’t. I don’t think photographing boxing was. Is on many people’s list of things that they want to do either.

But again, I guess you learn a huge amount from that experience and having to learn in the moment and under pressure, you learn through that 100%.

Samantha
00:09:18.190 – 00:10:38.340
And then you have to figure out, okay, well, how are you selling the pictures? Because I was unable to sell the pictures to boxes, and how do you market that and where do you set them up and how do you edit them?

And what camera equipment do you need for a shooting box? Because it’s very fast pace and, you know, it was evolving all the time. I had to teach myself Photoshop. I had to teach myself photography.

I was lucky. I got into photography just as it turned from film to digital, you know.

But then I also had to deal with the fact that within probably about six, six years of me starting my photography business, I’d gone from being one of maybe four photographers within about an hour’s radius of my area to then being one of maybe 20 photographers.

Because the digital age made it so much easier for people who were creative to take up photography, whereas prior to that, it really was a science and it was understanding the dark room, etcetera, and you would be taking photos that you couldn’t see. So you had to understand all the math of it.

So I literally got into it as it went from film to photography, digital, which was how I was able to, you know, sort of flag it as well, because I think my first digital camera was like a 1.3 megapixel camera. This thing cost like 300 pounds. I think my phone is like, 20 mega 20. Oh, I don’t even know. It’s just, you know. Yeah. So it was fun. It was.

It was definitely a fun journey.

Becca
00:10:38.900 – 00:11:01.060
Confidence gets you so far as well, though, because again, if you go back to your boxing example, there’ll be other people out there whose method would be right. I’m going to try and photograph boxing.

And then they go out and buy all the equipment and do all of the learning, and they do all of the things before they even get their first gig.

And basically your way of working is kind of like my way of working, which was like, oh, here’s an opportunity now let’s turn it into a business and I’ll worry about the details later.

Samantha
00:11:01.220 – 00:11:44.330
Yeah, and also we need that it does work. I’m not gonna lie.

You know, it comes with a few heart palpitations, for sure, but I think if you can just be ballsy and confident and just be like, well, why can’t I, you know, like, why can’t I, like, list all the reasons why it could go wrong? Okay, good. Are you willing to experience them? And I think that’s it. It’s like, as long as you’re willing to experience all the things that go wrong.

Like, I’ve always said, I pour a grape pint. If everything goes wrong tomorrow, I know I can walk into a pub anywhere on the planet and be like, hey, can I have a job? You know, it’s.

It’s having that confidence of, okay, I can do it, but also, if this doesn’t work out, I can do something else 100%.

Becca
00:11:44.570 – 00:12:02.010
I’m totally aligned with you there. That’s exactly how I think as well.

And actually, I often say that my favorite job ever was working in a pub when I was 18, because it had no responsibility. And I literally just stood there talking to people and making them drinks.

And I always say, if it all falls apart, I’m just going to go get a job in the pub. So maybe the two of us will be there together.

Samantha
00:12:02.610 – 00:12:03.330
I’m a great pub.

Becca
00:12:04.930 – 00:12:29.570
Let’s talk then about your journey from photography to venues.

Because, you know, this podcast has started very normally about someone talking about their business and how they’ve grown it and all of that kind of thing. But it is less usual for someone to say, I’ve gone from being a photographer to taking over a venue. So can you fill in that gap for us?

Tell us the story. What happened? How did you end up going from wedding photographer to venue entrepreneur?

Samantha
00:12:29.810 – 00:17:29.700
Yes. So I had a dream in the back of my mind that one day, maybe in my mind, I would be like, in my 60s, I’d have enough money to buy a wedding venue.

And there was a local wedding venue in East Winstead. It was called New Lodge. It’s actually been sold to a house now that I always thought, wow, this is just the most beautiful venue.

This would be ideal as a home, you know, own your owner, occupy a wedding venue. And I sort of thought in the back of my mind, maybe one day I would be able to. To do this.

I have a very good friend that I’ve known since I was a child. He’s called Stuart. He’s wild. And he is an entrepreneur and has a number of businesses. And I’d actually had a conversation with him.

My husband and I had had a conversation with him a few weeks before we found the first wedding venue where we were saying, look, we have a lot of connections, we know a lot of people, we know a lot of businesses, etc. What do you need? Because maybe we can do some connecting and we can connect you to different things.

And Stuart was like, well, I’m looking for businesses that are not on the market and able to be sold. And I could do A deal on them. He has an incredible art of structuring deals on buying businesses.

And so, you know, we sort of discussed maybe, I don’t know, a local laundrette or something like that. And, you know, we kind of walked away and we’re like, yeah, sure, okay, fine.

So I feel like the seed had already been planted in my mind of, you know, keep your eyes open, which sometimes I think is the first thing you need to have your eyes open to see the opportunities in front of you.

So in amongst all of this, I’d been to the national Wedding show and I’d had a photo up where a couple had come over and said, oh, we recognize that venue. We’re trying to find an intimate wedding venue that’s not just going to lock us in one room all day.

They were only having 20 guests and they really wanted to find somewhere that allowed them to have run up the building rather than. And everywhere they were seeing were like, yeah, we could put you in this one. One function room, basically.

So I agreed to help them find something because they were looking for my area, obviously, with the hope that they would then book me as their photographer. And I was sitting in Starbucks and I looked up all the local venues I knew and I started to put them into an email for them.

And then at last minute, I was just about to send the email and I was like, the Ravenswood? And I’d been there the year before, actually for a week. And I was like, maybe they would do something like that.

So I went on the website and the website was down.

And honestly, I don’t know what possessed me because I’m not normally this nice, but I thought, one small business to another, I will give them a call and tell them that their website is down. And I did. And Steve answered the phone and he literally just said hello. To which I was like, oh, I just. The Ravenswood.

Because that’s not really how you would answer the phone for a wedding venue or a hotel. And he said, yes. And I was like, oh, I wanted to let you know your website was down. And he said, yeah, I know. And I said, well, what are you doing?

And he said, well, I’m going fishing. And I was like, okay, well, what are you doing with the venue? And he said, well, it’s the sale. So it had.

It was supposed to be turned into flats and the deal had just fallen through and he was about to put it on the market and I said, well, I think I might know someone that might want to buy it. Like, can I call you back? And he said yes. So I phoned Stuart in a panic. Stuart was actually in America at the time.

And I was like, I found a wedding venue. We need to buy it. I can do it. You need to help me buy it. No way of buying a wedding venue. And Stuart was like, how about.

And I was like, I don’t know, I forgot to ask. So I had to find Steve back and be like, how much? And anyway, yeah, it was 2.7 million. And even for Stuart, that was ridiculous.

You know, it wasn’t like that was an easy purchase. It was absolutely wild. We gave him 150,000 in cash as a deposit with no lawyers, no nothing. This I don’t recommend. Don’t do this.

And it was all on a golden handshake. And we took the keys and we told him we’d pay him £10,000amonth and we would get it off the ground. It had no weddings, but no events, no nothing.

He’d canceled everything. It needed a lot of love and care. It was, you know, beautiful, but tired.

And we then spent the next eight months trying to convince Barclays to give us a mortgage, which they finally did. But in the beginning, they were like, no. And they were like, make a business plan. So we made a business plan. And we forgot laundry.

We forgot, like, we forgot all these things that we were like, oh, yeah, we know. But Barclays basically were like, neither of you have a degree in hospital mentality. Neither of you actually will have a degree, period.

Neither of us have a degree. And, yeah, they were just like, we’re not giving you a mortgage.

And then eventually I went and tapped on the door and was like, hi, I’ve booked 90 weddings. I kind of need the mortgage. And they were like, okay, we’ll give you a. We’ll give you a chance.

Becca
00:17:29.939 – 00:18:04.840
I love it. You make it sound so simple, even in the explanation. And I know people will be going, sorry, what? Sorry, what? Explain that to me again.

Because clearly you didn’t have a cool 2.5 million saved up from your wedding photography business, right? It was.

It was a number of things, happenstances, as we like to call them, where you’d had this friend or this person that you were talking to that was interested in purchasing something you happened to call the Ravenswood and find that that was available. And then it all came together, but there was still a huge leap and a huge jump and risk for both of you.

Samantha
00:18:05.320 – 00:20:23.120
I just knew. I knew in my heart of heart, and I think this is where it came from, and this is where the confidence comes in.

I had seen probably in my photography career, I think I’d probably seen almost about 400 weddings. And, you know, I had seen everything from a registry office to the Tower of London to Windsor Castle to weddings in America, weddings in Italy.

You name it, I’d done it like a garden backyard wedding, a church wedding. And I felt like I just knew what worked and I knew what really didn’t work.

And also as well, at a lot of the weddings, I know a lot of wedding photographers will sympathize with this. Like, you end up running the day and controlling things because you need to keep the timings in.

And if they don’t have a strong wedding coordinator on the day, you kind of have to take control because you need to get them back so they can sit down to eat. And you need. But you need to get all the photography that you need. So you kind of have to keep control of the day to make sure you get your product.

But they also don’t miss key milestones throughout the day.

And I feel like that had just given me so much stability and understanding of the wedding industry that when I found this venue, it’s, you know, it ticked all the boxes for me. The bar was in the room, there was, you know, all close by. And it’s like it had accommodation, but it had a separate ceremony space.

It had an outside ceremony space. There was so much going for it that I was super confident.

And I’d also photographed a wedding at a venue of probably about an hour and a half from Ravenswood, where they do 300 weddings a year. And so I knew that was possible.

So when I first pitched it to Stuart, he was like, oh, we’ll do a comedy night and we’ll have a restaurant and we’ll do weddings on Saturdays. And I was like, no, no, we’re going to do weddings seven days a week. And he was like, nobody gets married seven days a week. And I was like, they do.

So, you know, once I got that through to him and really got him to understand that this is an exclusive use wedding venue and we can do, you know, 300 weddings a year here, he was on board. And then he was like, okay, fine. And it was then sort of left to me to figure out, how does that work? What does that look like?

How would the delivery work, how’s the marketing going to work, how’s the sales going to work? And how does that structure, did that.

Becca
00:20:23.120 – 00:20:28.040
First venue come with an already there team, or did you build a team from the ground up?

Samantha
00:20:28.360 – 00:20:50.500
It Came with three staff, a chef, a gardener and an admin person. And that was it. And they literally, honestly, they looked at me and Stuart like, I love them dearly.

They all fit, think we’re hilarious, and they’ve been very much part of our journey. But they honestly, they looked at us like, you are a pair of kids that have no idea what you’re doing.

Becca
00:20:52.100 – 00:21:08.100
But it worked and it has been successful. So talk to us about that, particularly that first venue.

As you look back over the time, especially towards the beginning, what were some of the things that you did that you thought this went really well, and what were some of the hurdles or struggles you faced along the way that you didn’t see coming?

Samantha
00:21:08.620 – 00:23:34.760
So things that I think worked really well was my initial connections to wedding industry already, for example, before we’d even taken the keys, I was on the phone to a lady called Helen that had a company called Empirical Events. And I was like, hey, I’m taking over this wedding venue. Don’t tell anyone.

But basically, four weeks after we take over, can you put a wedding fair in there? And, you know, she was like, probably, yes, actually. So she somehow contacted all these people saying, can you just keep this date free?

I’ll tell you a bit more about it later. And I think within four weeks of having the. Having the keys, we had 100 couples through the door that were looking for a wedding venue.

So that was super important. The next thing for me was just making it known again and making it known that we were open.

I managed to save a few of the weddings that had been cancelled, which was super emotional, because if you can imagine, having a wedding canceled and then having someone be like, by the way, we can do your wedding again. And then I think that I just kind of went a bit wild.

Like, I phoned a friend that I knew was a hairdresser, and I was like, hairdressers talk to everybody. So I phoned her and said, oh, do you know anyone that.

In your hair, in your salon that’s having a birthday soon and would they like a venue and is there anything you need a venue for? And she was like, oh, I haven’t done the naming ceremony for my daughter. I’d love to do that.

And, oh, yeah, it’s, you know, this other girl’s 30th, maybe we could do that. So I just started to get it full of people. You know, we had a few raves, questionable toys, very fun, but probably wouldn’t recommend those.

We had outdoor cinema, which was incredible, until the neighbors called.

We Had a Christmas fair that made me cry all day because basically we had Santa Claus and didn’t realize that the reason everyone pays for Santa is because otherwise it just. People just turn up. And we were expecting about 500 people. I think we had 1700 people through the door.

And they parked so badly up the road because the car park was full, that all the neighbors came down and started shouting at us, who are now our friends. But at the time, not because rightly so, they. Everyone had parked on both sides for miles. And it just. It was absolute carnage.

And, yeah, it was very successful, but I literally cried all day.

Becca
00:23:35.800 – 00:23:45.480
The lessons you learn along the way, things that you don’t expect, you know, we think, oh, no one might turn up to our Christmas. We don’t think about what happens if too many people turn up to see Santa.

Samantha
00:23:45.480 – 00:24:23.430
Literally, it was absolute disaster. I definitely, from that point forward, all Santa Claus events are ticketed. Highly recommend any Santa events ticketed. Yeah, so that was the sort of.

But for me, it was get as many people through the door and make it known as fast as possible. And then that, you know, that for me is.

And at whatever cost, you know, I would do birthday parties where all I would make was money on the bar, you know, and I would have people I knew, like, come and hold events there. And just anything I could to promote the venue in the first year was what we did.

Becca
00:24:23.430 – 00:24:43.990
Yeah. So visibility was key, and connections was key.

Knowing the right people already having some connections, but then also just leveraging your own network to get as many people in the door and knowing that it was open because I guess it was difficult as well, because there was probably some real negative PR around the fact that people had had their weddings canceled. And that must have been hard for you to manage as well.

Samantha
00:24:44.310 – 00:26:02.620
Yeah, there was a lot of negative pr. But to be honest, that’s kind of how I take venues over, is they do honestly have a fair amount of negative PR or have kind of gone by the wayside.

There are some venues I’ve taken over that have been, you know, done. Been doing okay, but I generally tend to purchase venues that need to be built from the ground up again.

And so the first thing is to make sure everybody realizes it’s under new management. And, you know, I think the Ravenswood had an incredible reputation.

I think the previous owners did such a great job of it when they were passionate about it, but as it got towards the end, you know, they.

I guess one of the things as well is it’s quite hard to obviously move with the times when everything then goes onto social media and it’s not something you know that well. And, you know, I think that they just got to a point where they were ready to retire.

And, you know, when pitch came to shove, he was like, okay, good, that’s it, I’m done. And so he then cancelled in January, canceled everything that he had booked for that year, which was a fair amount.

And, yeah, it didn’t go down well, but I totally sympathize and understand why he did it, and I don’t think he was wrong to do that.

Becca
00:26:02.780 – 00:26:18.730
Yeah.

And actually, in some ways, as you said there, you can use that negative PR to your benefit because you then, then can be the people that come in and save the day and regenerate a venue that people loved and still wanted to be part of their community and not have turned into flats.

Samantha
00:26:18.810 – 00:27:04.870
The beautiful thing about it as well was quite early on, and it’s happened a number of times now, we booked a wedding for a girl who basically her parents had gotten married at the venue. And whether correct or not, she was like, I am a product of the wedding night. And she was then, now getting married, you know, 20, 25 years later.

So that was quite incredible to meet her and then also to meet.

We met this incredible family as well, who had lived in the venue before it was a function venue and he’d grown up there as a boy, so meeting him and having his stories as well was really nice. So it is beautiful to take over a venue that has history and longevity and then meet people that have been part of that history and longevity.

Becca
00:27:05.240 – 00:27:19.320
Absolutely. So you didn’t just leave it at one venue. As I said in the introduction, you now have a whole collection of venues.

So how did you go from, I’ve got one venue and this was a big leap, but we’ve made it success to. I know, let’s do this again and again.

Samantha
00:27:19.720 – 00:30:05.920
So I would have been fine with one venue. I was quite happy with one venue. I’m not going to lie. I was working a lot.

And part of the reason why I wanted to come out of photography and do something else was because I was committed two years in advance.

And I was kind of thinking at the time I was in my 30s and I was thinking about my future and I felt it was very difficult to be constantly committed two years in advance, particularly on weekends. My husband played cricket and his cricket team didn’t think I actually existed because I’d never once made it to a cricket match.

And, you know, so for me, when I Got into the venue that was kind of in my mind was this is, this is going to be that difference. But obviously when you take over a venue, I was then working seven days a week from 8 in the morning till 2 in the morning sometimes.

And so slowly but surely I started to hire people to take over roles.

And it got to a point where I had hired enough people that the venue could, like, I could walk away from it or I could also be heavily involved in it at will.

And that was the point that Stuart then turned around to me and said, well, you know, his, his other companies involve men and vans, you know, gutter cleaning or things like that. So he was like, one man, one van makes a thousand pounds. Get ten. And he’s like, let’s get ten venues. And I was like, you’re insane.

And he was like, yeah, but let’s just have a look. And I was like, no, you’re actually insane. And I was like, but, you know, whatever again, like, what do we have to lose? Might as well.

And let’s at least have a look. So we probably looked at about 30 wedding venues before we picked the second one that we purchased.

And I think in my entire career that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done is go from having one venue to two because it completely changed the dynamics, especially because it was over three and a half hours away. So I wasn’t just popping down. And. And it’s in Somerset as well.

So if anyone’s ever driven the 303, you know that that can sometimes be a six hour drive, not a three hour drive. And so it was making that adjustment and I made huge mistakes on that, many mistakes.

But really that was probably the biggest test for me was how to be able to walk away from Ravenswood and give it to someone else and put a manager in place and just allow them to be. And then how to establish a new venue, put a manager in place and then manage two venues. I still very much had all the marketing.

I’ve always held onto marketing quite heavily, but I think that probably was. I definitely cried a lot then as well. I do cry sometimes. People like, how do you sleep? I’m like, great. But I do cry sometimes.

Becca
00:30:06.160 – 00:30:30.180
It is a bit like having children, though. They often say having children going from one to two is the hardest leap because you suddenly got to split yourself two ways.

And it’s a, it’s kind of the same that you generally you had to become a CEO, you couldn’t be in both businesses at the coal face. You had to Be managing from above. And that means as someone who’s an entrepreneur, wants to be involved. And I get this, too. Letting go.

And that’s difficult.

Samantha
00:30:30.260 – 00:32:37.160
Hardest thing. It’s. The hardest thing is allowing someone else to take your baby and make a mistake with it and then helping them to navigate that.

And I really learned that lesson a few times. The first time I learned it was when I hired my first salesperson, Hannah, who’s still with me today.

She’s actually the head of sales over the whole collection now. And I was probably at the Ravenswood.

I was booking about three weddings a week, maybe four on a good week, one on a bad week, but average, only about three weddings a week. And I thought I was amazing, because that’s actually pretty good.

And I didn’t think anyone would be able to sell the venue as well as I would, because how could they? Because I’m so passionate about the venue. And I used to tour them around.

I take them into the grounds, I do this whole extreme experience tour with them. I get really passionate about the clothes. And I was just like, I am amazing, obviously, and how is anyone else going to do this?

So when Stuart was trying to help me, you know, because he’s really helped me grow as a person. So when he was trying to help me and be like, look, you can’t sell the weddings. Do the marketing. Deliver the weddings. Like, you need to hire someone.

Which one are you going to let go of? And we agreed that it would be the sale. But I was a little bit, like, in my mind, I was like, yeah, we’ll see how this works.

And so I hired Hannah, and I put her on a wedding open day that we were having or a wedding fair we were having that weekend. And I think by the end of the week, she’d sold six weddings. And I was like, wait, what? No one had sold six weddings?

And I realized, okay, well, she is dedicated and only able. Like, I was trying to sell the weddings, order the food, and do, you know, check ins and checkouts and make sure the evening went well.

And of course, having a dedicated person is gonna have much more of effect. And also, honestly, she is just a better salesperson than I am.

And what was hilarious was I’d spend, like an hour and a half on the tours, and she would do them in half an hour. And I’d be like, well, you didn’t show them the garden. And she’s like, they’ve got legs. They can go and look at the garden if they want to.

I’m not walking all the way down there. And I was like, what do you mean? This is the key part. You have to show them. She’s like, I closed the booking. I was like, okay, fair.

I was like, all right, I get it.

Becca
00:32:37.580 – 00:33:06.620
It’s a humbling moment, isn’t it, as well, when you’re the top of a company to realize that, yeah, actually, maybe some people can do this better or as good or better than I can.

And I think, again, even smaller businesses, when they have to outsource something, that’s something they really struggle with as well, to go, you know, I don’t need to hire someone to write my content. I don’t need to hire a content creator. I don’t need to. I can do all of those things. And. But I also say both things are possible.

You can do all of those things, but that doesn’t mean you should do all of those things.

Samantha
00:33:06.780 – 00:33:07.050
And.

Becca
00:33:07.120 – 00:33:13.760
And it doesn’t mean you’re doing it at the top level, because actually, someone who’s a specialist, that’s all they’re focused on is being good at that thing.

Samantha
00:33:14.000 – 00:35:42.420
And that’s 100% the point. And I think actually, if you are smart in business, you hire people better than you in every single role. Like, that’s actually what you need to do.

You need to hire. You need to take every single role, and you need to hire someone that is better than you at that role.

And I think being a successful business person is understanding that.

You know, it’s like it’s, you’ve got to play the piano and play all the parts, but it’s like you have to have the people underneath you that are just able to get on with it. If you’re going to micromanage every single part of someone underneath, well, you might as well not have them there.

Or if they’re going to come to you every second with a question. Like, some of my staff make the most wildest decision sometimes, and they’re like, well, we’ve decided, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I’m like, okay, well, let’s try it. Like, if that’s what you think is going to work, let’s give it a bash. And luckily, nine times out of 10, it works really well.

But it’s often something that I do when I do a business talk or things like this. It’s. I sort of explain the sort of spirit, mind, body sense in the sense that the CEO needs to be the spirit.

It’s like you need to be the person that’s having the big ideas. You need to be free to be able to go, something’s happening over there. Let me delve into that.

Or, okay, let me look at the forecast for a year’s time. Like in the future, particularly in the wedding industry, you have to be almost a year in advance. You can’t just look at your bookings for tomorrow.

You need to be looking at, okay, July next year. How are my bookings?

And then you need the minds underneath you who are the people, like the intrapreneurs of the business, the ones that can come up with good ideas and they can sort of great.

Make great programs and great plans of where the business needs to go and what their, you know, what they are doing with their section and how they’re growing their section.

And then you have the body, which is the most important part of the business, which are the people that actually produce what the spirits and minds have come up with. And it’s recognizing who falls into what category, nurturing that. Like sometimes, you know, we have someone.

We’ve got an incredible staff member that works with us now in the head office. And she started as a housekeeper and it was like, okay, good.

She then went from housekeeping to waiting to bar to assistant and wedding coordinator to wedding coordinator, wedding coordinator to now the wedding coordinator over all the coordinators in the company. Because you could see that spark. And that was like, ooh, let’s nurture that spark. And I’ve gone on a roll, but you get the idea.

Becca
00:35:42.580 – 00:36:15.210
Oh, I love it.

I think it’s a fantastic analogy and I love the way that you’re thinking about those people and their different roles within the business and the fact that you also can value people and see something in people to be able to develop them up through as well. I think all of those qualities and what you’re sharing about is what makes you a great CEO and was what has made you a success in what you’ve done.

Now talk to me about expanding to America, because if having venues in the UK wasn’t enough, you now appear to have venues in Texas and Florida in the collection as well. How on earth did that all happen?

Samantha
00:36:15.210 – 00:38:49.250
So bored. Stewart is dangerous.

And basically Stuart was bored in America visiting his brother in Florida and he thought, oh, let me just see, what is the sale wedding venue wise in Florida? And that’s how America happened. I think America for me was an interesting jump because firstly, the weddings are so incredibly different over there.

But that is also honestly why I agreed to it, is because they outsource all of the catering and the bar.

So actually the core team in the us Whereas for me here, of course, a core team in the UK for a venue that delivers 300 weddings a year, like main core salaried staff is probably about, I don’t know, probably about 30 staff.

But then I would have another 30 staff that were, you know, housekeepers, waiting, stuff by staff, zero hour contracts, that’s what, that’s the word I was looking for.

Whereas in the us, I literally just need to have my general manager, probably an ops manager, a couple of sales staff, and I have a couple of what we call venue coordinators. Because the US weddings all have wedding planners. No matter the size of the wedding, they all have a wedding planner.

So you don’t really need to control things on the day because the wedding planner does. And if the wedding planner is not very good, the photographer does.

And if the trunk is not very good, there’s someone bossy in the group that will control the day. So I just need to really have a venue person around to be able to step in as needed.

But also the US weddings don’t start until about 4 or 5 o’ clock in the afternoon and they actually finish about 10, so maybe 11. But it’s definitely a different, totally different setup.

So in a way having venues in the US is much easier because all I needed to know was if anything went wrong, staffing wise, there was someone in the local area that I knew that I could call up and be like, hey, you’ve got a key, go open the door and let the vendors in. Because really that’s what you’re selling, is you’re selling a venue and they bring everything else.

Now over time we’ve obviously nurtured relationships with suppliers, etc. And we’ve built, created our impactors.

But that was what made it okay for me because I wasn’t willing to take on a venue where I got a phone call at 4 in the morning being like, hey, the chef didn’t turn up. I can’t think with that, but I can think with a sort of turnkey operation.

Becca
00:38:49.490 – 00:39:09.710
And on a personal level, how did you go about discovering these differences or learning about it? Was that part of the process of deciding to purchase or did you learn about this stuff when you purchased?

Because I think sometimes we live in our world and we think, right, what works here will also work in America. But as you’ve just described, it is very different. So how did you personally go on that journey to make sure you got it right?

Samantha
00:39:09.870 – 00:40:24.070
So luckily I’d already photographed about three weddings in the US and I also have I have friends over there. I. I went to school with two girls who went over and married Americans and happened to marry Americans in la, similar area.

And they created quite a good friendship group and my husband and myself had been over to see them a number of times and then we’d met other people in that friendship group and it was one of their weddings I photographed. And then out of the other people I’d met in the friendship group, one of them, I think was a bridesmaid at that wedding.

She hired me to photograph her wedding in Seattle.

So I think by the time that I had started in the venue journey, I’d already been to probably about four or five US weddings, either as a photographer or as a guest. So I was quite aware as to the differences. And then obviously you’ve got social media, you see a lot of things on there, but no, there are.

Obviously there was so many other things that we had to learn.

You know, legals, wise, sales tax, that was a whole thing, you know, and then just understanding how that it works in the state and the county and every. There’s all these different laws for all these different things.

Becca
00:40:24.310 – 00:41:19.090
I. I can imagine it has been a challenge. And again, I just think you talk about it so effortlessly and I don’t even know.

I’m sure you do, but I don’t know if you know how quite incredible you are as a person, as an entrepreneur, because, know, people listening to this will be inspired because you’re doing things, you’re breaking down barriers, you’re doing things that many people would think as a wedding photographer, well, that would never be possible. That could never be my life. I could never do that. I could never.

And yet you’re doing it and you’re moving forward and you’re finding success and you’re overcoming barriers and you’re thinking, big picture, why shouldn’t I go to the U.S. we’ll worry about the details later. It goes right back to what we talked about right at the start with starting the photography business, and I knew that would be a theme.

But you have something magical about you that says, yeah, why not? I’m going to do it, and then I’m going to work hard to make it happen in the future. So what’s next for you? You have 12 in the collection.

Are you done or are you going to keep on going?

Samantha
00:41:19.730 – 00:42:40.830
I think we’re going to keep on going. I think what’s next for me is I really want to get a bit more hands on in the US and I would like to take that up to 10.

I have a few things that we’re trying to do over here in the uk. I have a few, you know, some of my venues are incredibly successful doing over 300 weddings a year.

Some of my venues are still doing in the 100 to 150 mark. I want to push those up into the 250 mark. So that’s really the concentration is building those venues right now.

And once those venues are where I want them, then I think all of my attention will turn to the US And I think it will then be like, okay, you know, we got three. That was fun. Let’s just hold those there for a second. And one of them is doing incredibly well. The other two are doing quite well.

But I think that I wouldn’t touch anymore in the US until I get the structure a bit more stable and also, like I said, get my ability to go back and forth a bit more stable. And then I feel like we really will do the next push.

And the next push would probably be to, you know, add a couple a year to the U.S. i, I don’t know why, but I think I have 25 in my mind as like my target. Stuart’s like, let’s get 100. And I’m like, 25 sounds great.

Becca
00:42:41.710 – 00:42:44.350
Well, it started as 10 when Stuart first said to you.

Samantha
00:42:45.710 – 00:44:08.690
So now I’m thinking with 25. But honestly, I think probably hand in, heart on heart, I think that for me the quality of the weddings is the most important.

Like we had something ridiculous like 195 reviews last month because I really push on like getting the feedback and the reviews. And out of those reviews, it was like 96% of those were four stars and above. Majority of them five star reviews.

And you know, obviously some reviews are from guests, some are from couples, some are from whatever. And you know, I think it would be very arrogant to say that I want 100% five star reviews considering I do two and a half thousand weddings a year.

But I mean, that statistic for me is phenomenal. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about making sure that the couples are fully enjoying the experience and having the best day.

And I would never sacrifice that for growth.

It’s more important for me that the product is pristine and a good product and that the staff are enjoying it, the families and the couples are enjoying it.

And I wouldn’t want to, you know, go, oh yeah, we’re just going to push it and get up to 100 weddings and be this huge chain that just doesn’t care and doesn’t have the infrastructure to. To make it. You know, that to me is greed over caring about the couples.

Becca
00:44:08.690 – 00:44:26.110
Yeah.

And actually it can end up having the opposite effect because you lose what makes your venues amazing in the first place and why people want to go there if you start letting them go and you lose that love and care. Have you ever, have you ever let a venue go in terms of you, have you sold a venue or have you always kept all of the venues along the way?

Samantha
00:44:26.430 – 00:44:28.510
So far we’ve kept them all interesting.

Becca
00:44:28.510 – 00:45:11.090
So it’ll be interesting to see whether or not you keep them or you sell them down the line. I. I’m fully invested in watching your growth journey now.

Just bring it back down to earth before you finish because like I said, I think this has been a very inspirational episode of this podcast and people will be learning from your mindset. But they may be thinking, yeah, but I also don’t want to own even one venue, let alone 25 across the world.

But what they do want to know is what’s working, because you’ve clearly turned your venues, many of them very successful and all of them successful. What’s working, do you think, in your venues right now?

From a marketing perspective, where are your inquiries coming from and is it the same everywhere or does it vary from place to place?

Samantha
00:45:11.330 – 00:49:20.580
That’s actually a really interesting question because I also have like my three US venues are all Gen Z.

And I think that’s quite interesting because they do just get married much younger out in the US Particularly in the areas that I have, the wedding venues. So that’s been an interesting observing that, because there is a shift in how they communicate and how they book.

But overall majority of our inquiries come from either Google or Facebook, slash Instagram, like Meta. And I would say 80% of my inquiries, well, inquiries in England, inquiries in the US come from there. And I honestly am a stickler for statistics.

So I could tell you exactly how many inquiries it takes me to get a tour, exactly how many tours it takes me to get a booking.

And then the sole focus is on working on closing the gap from inquiry to tour and from floor to booking and how we can always improve in both of those areas. And then also watching the trends, like there are trends over the year. But I am also very much, I will not go into agreement with things.

For example, one of the things that is communicated a lot right now is that the wedding industry is slow because Covid and people didn’t get together. And therefore now we’re not Seeing as many couples getting married.

And I am not saying that isn’t a fact, but I’m also saying with good marketing and correct, positive attitude, you don’t have to go into agreement with that. And that’s one of my biggest bugbears sometimes in the industry, as I hear people.

Like, I remember in 2008 and also 2013, like, 2013, it was like, no one’s getting married this year because it ends in 13 and bad luck. And I think I had my biggest year. And in 2008, obviously, there was the financial crash. So then 2009, it was like, no one’s booking for 2009.

So I put all my prices up because I was like, well, if no one’s booking, then I’m going to put my prices up. And because in my mind, the expensive couples are coming down a peg, so that’s who I’m going to catch. And again, I had a very successful year.

So I just think that’s really important is for people to not go into agreement sometimes with what the general. You know, if I listen to. I. I have all sorts. I have people being like, no one’s booking because the budget’s coming out.

And I’m like, look, not being funny. Like, I. I don’t even think about the budget. So you’re telling me that all of our clients are thinking about budget now?

For sure, there’s going to be some people that are going to be invested in the budget, but, you know, that’s probably people that are, like, buying houses and things like that. It’s like, if you’re engaged and you’re getting married, you’re engaged and you’re getting married. Budget aside, like, you’re gonna get married.

So, you know, it’s just remembering that. And then it’s also remembering that there’s like 250,000 weddings a year in the UK you just need a really small portion of that.

And, you know, a lot of suppliers, they probably need anywhere from like 30 to 50 weddings a year to run a very successful business. And that, for me, is mindset. It really is like, it’s mindset. It’s. It’s just being like, nope, I know my statistics. I know that this.

This week I had, you know, or this month I had 10 inquiries and I closed two of them. Okay, well, now you need to look at your pricing. There’s something maybe out on your pricing. Or you had 15 inquiries and you closed 14 of them.

There’s still something out on your pricing. You’re too cheap. So, you know it’s just. It’s being able to look at it as a business and not being able to.

I think in the wedding industry, the biggest thing is so many people are creatives, and so they’re creatives and they’re doers. So then they get very strong stuck in the production side of everything.

And it’s educating themselves enough to be able to step out and understand the business side, to support the production side. So, yeah, I rolled.

Becca
00:49:20.580 – 00:49:44.910
Again, action, not excuses. That is what I’m hearing from you.

It’s about not finding excuses for what’s not working, but actually taking action and looking at the data and finding out what does work. Sam, it has been such a pleasure to talk to you. I could talk to you all day, but time is against us.

So let me end with the question I always ask at the end of every episode for you, which is this, what’s one thing you personally wish you’d known sooner in business?

Samantha
00:49:46.910 – 00:51:43.150
So I knew this question was coming, and I feel like I could answer it a hundred times over. But I think the most important thing that I wish I’d known sooner in business is about personnel.

And I think it’s really, really, really important to constantly be evaluating the people that work for you. And I think particularly in a small business and a growing business, it’s really hard to differentiate the fact that you are the CEO.

And as much as you might love this person to pieces at the end of the day, are they creating the best product for you, or could someone be doing it better? And it’s brutal and it’s horrible, and, you know, it’s probably. The personnel is probably one of the hardest things.

But I really do wish that sooner I had realized that actually, you know, if you’re trusting someone to produce a product, they need to be producing it to the best of their ability. And if they’re not, then you need to find someone better to do it.

And also as well, I don’t allow any negativity in my team, particularly my head office team. I can always be challenged. I can always be told I’m wrong, and I can always be told that there’s a better way to do something.

And I’m not to know best to not know that. Like I said, I hire people that are better than me. So I do expect to be, you know, have something like that.

But I will not have someone in my team that upsets my staff or upsets me.

Like, as soon as I feel like someone is upsetting me or I feel a bit backed off from going and speaking to that person, then it’s like, no, no, actually this needs to be adjusted. I’ve been very fortunate. We have incredible people with me.

But every so often I have had to kick myself and be like, okay, actually it was more beneficial for the company if this person was replaced with someone else. And it’s horrible. It’s the worst part of the job, but it’s probably the most important.

Becca
00:51:43.470 – 00:52:15.290
So important. And that’s why I always say to people, be careful about hiring people you’re friends with. It never a good idea. It’s better.

It’s better to hire someone you don’t know because if you do have to let them go, at least you haven’t ever had a friendship that you’re about to destroy. So, yeah, that is definitely something I’ve learned along the way too. Sam, I’m excited to see the next steps in your journey.

I am going to be keeping my eye on what you’re up to. It’s been a fantastic conversation. If people want to find out more about your venues, find out more about you.

Where are the best places for them to find you?

Samantha
00:52:15.450 – 00:52:49.540
So all of the venues are on every social media channel going because I have many 20 year olds that work for me. But basically I’m on Instagram on Samantha Gilchrist official. I think the overall collection is on there under the GirlChrist collection.

And then we also have a website, the GirlChrist collection, which has all of the website, all of the venues listed on there and also a section about myself. And yeah, like I said, all of the venues are on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. If it exists on social media, they’ll be on there.

Becca
00:52:49.620 – 00:53:03.620
Amazing.

And I will make sure I link to the overall collection website and social media and to your social media in the show notes so that people can go and see an overview and find the venues that are closest to them. Sam, thank you. It’s been a pleasure and I hope to see you again soon.

Samantha
00:53:03.860 – 00:53:05.540
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great.

Becca
00:53:05.540 – 00:53:32.560
What a fantastic conversation that was. I really enjoyed talking to Sam and I’ve talked to a lot of people on this podcast.

I’ve had a lot of conversations, but I think that was one of the most inspirational conversations I’ve had in the last year. And I think if you take nothing else away from it, it’s stop making excuses, take action and get out of your own way.

As I said, I’ll put all of the details for all of the venues in the show notes, go and check them out. But I hope you’ve left this conversation feeling inspired. I’ll see you next time.