Show notes:

Today I am chatting with Kelly Chandler, former wedding planner turned consultant. We talk about her own journey in the wedding industry and how to make changes when you feel like you have fallen out of love with your wedding business. We discuss the importance of delegating tasks, seeking help, and focusing on your strengths and passions.

Find out more about Kelly on her website:

https://www.kellychandlerconsulting.co.uk/

Ready to level up your wedding business this year? Take a look at my brand new signature programme:

The Wedding Pro Business Builder

Time stamps:

Starting a Wedding Planning Business [00:01:48] Kelly Chandler talks about how she got into the wedding industry and started her own wedding planning business.

Transitioning from Wedding Planning to Consulting [00:07:18] Kelly Chandler discusses how she transitioned from wedding planning to consulting for wedding venues, and how this opportunity presented itself at the right time for her.

Falling Out of Love with the Wedding Business [00:05:34] Kelly Chandler talks about how she fell out of love with wedding planning and how it took her a long time to recognize it. She also discusses the changes in her life that coincided with this realization.

Signs of falling out of love with your business [00:07:49] Speaker 2 and Speaker 0 discuss signs that indicate falling out of love with one’s business, such as reacting negatively to new inquiries and feeling unexcited about upcoming meetings.

Dealing with doubts and imposter syndrome [00:10:28] Speaker 2 and Speaker 0 talk about the internal monologue that can make it difficult to move on from a business and how to deal with doubts and imposter syndrome.

Using testimonials to combat self-doubt [00:13:01] Speaker 0 shares how she used testimonials to combat self-doubt and imposter syndrome when transitioning from wedding planning to consultancy.

Balancing Multiple Roles [00:15:34] Speaker 0 discusses how she balanced being a wedding planner and a venue consultant for two years before transitioning fully into venue consulting.

Recognizing the Need for Change [00:16:16] Speaker 2 asks for tips on how to redesign a business or start a new venture. Speaker 0 emphasizes the importance of recognizing the need for change and doing deep work to identify values and skills.

Shaking Up Business Services [00:19:19] Speaker 0 gives an example of how wedding planners can shake up their business by offering a more packaged service instead of a full planning service. She also emphasizes the importance of regularly doing deep work to reassess priorities and make changes accordingly.

Staying in love with your business [00:27:40] Kelly and Becca discuss how to keep things fresh and bring new ideas to the fore to stay in love with your business. Kelly emphasizes the importance of looking after oneself and taking breaks to innovate and grow.

Gratitude [00:25:50] Kelly and Becca talk about the importance of gratitude and acknowledging what one has. Kelly mentions that she writes down what she is grateful for every day as part of her journaling routine.

Comparisonitis [00:24:01] Kelly and Becca discuss the issue of comparisonitis and how to ground oneself in reality. They emphasize the importance of remembering one’s original why and not getting carried away by what one sees on social media.

• Falling out of love with one’s wedding business [00:31:07] Kelly and Becca discuss the challenges of running a wedding business and how it’s important to recognize when it’s time to delegate tasks to others.
• Trends in wedding venues [00:32:54] Kelly shares her insights on the current trends in wedding venues, including the growing popularity of outdoor and land-based locations.
• Importance of collaboration in the wedding industry [00:35:25] Kelly and Becca discuss the value of collaboration and good relationships in the wedding industry, particularly between venues and wedding professionals.

Transcript:

Kelly: As entrepreneurs, as business owners, it’s really common, isn’t it, to wear multiple hats and to do different things and some, sometimes it’s right to do multiple things together and, and always do that. And sometimes it’s a, a transition where one is taking over from the other and I think, yeah, it throws up its challenges for sure, but it’s often really rewarding.

Becca: I am Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger, and you are listening to The Wedding Pros who are Ready to Grow 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. Today I’m joined by my wedding industry friend Kelly Chandler. Previously, a successful wedding planner, Kelly now works with wedding venues, helping them to make more money from their land and property. With two decades of experience in the wedding industry, Kelly’s passionate about unlocking, unblocking, and championing the potential of her clients.

Kelly it’s so good to have you here. Welcome to the podcast.

Kelly: Thank you so much for having me. Really, really delighted to be here.

Becca: It’s an absolute pleasure. I dunno why I haven’t had you on sooner, because I absolutely love working with you. So I’m so glad we finally managed to get it in the diary and I’ve got you on the podcast today.

Now, today we’re gonna be talking about a little bit of a different subject. We’re gonna be talking about what happens when people fall out of love with their wedding businesses. But before we get into that, I wanna go right back to the start of your journey. As I said in the intro, you started off as a wedding planner, so go right back.

In your mind, how did you end up working in this wonderful world of weddings in the first place?

Kelly: Yeah, great. Great question and it’s, it is good timing as well, because actually this year I celebrate 20 years in the wedding industry, which. Feels quite, quite significant. And if you’d asked me 20 years ago, would I be working in weddings, I that would not have been, that would not have been what I was thinking.

So, yeah, how did I get into it? So I, I was working in event management, conference and incentive travel actually for a few years after I left university. I studied languages, I studied French at university, always loved travel people, events. Bit of an organizing gene in me in terms of getting stuff done.

So I fell, I, I guess I fell into event management. But then an opportunity came up with a very good friend of mine who’d been made redundant actually. She, she’d worked in corporate and she was made redundant. And she had this idea of she wanted to be a wedding planner. And basically she approached me as a really good friend and said, you work in event management.

Do you fancy a change? Do you, wouldn’t, would you like to be, you know, your own boss rather than working for someone else? And. To be very honest, we didn’t give it that much thought and we just lept and did it. And that’s how I started with, with a then business partner who is still a dear friend. But yeah, it was.

It was just like that.

Becca: Wow. So you really did take the leap, because we talk a lot on this podcast about how people take the leap out of employment, how they become self-employed, how they get over those hurdles of feeling like it’s an impossible dream. So how did you make that decision? Or did you really just leap blindly?

Kelly: Well, It was, it was, in all honesty, leaping blindly. It wasn’t quite, I hadn’t quite intended the leap to be quite as much of a leap as it was because my intention had been to basically do two, you know, to to continue with my event management job and then assess up the wedding business. But as it transpired, reducing down hours was not gonna be an option.

Trying to do both was not gonna be an option. There was a lot of travel in that, in that role as it was. And basically I was facing a decision either go with this business or. Or stick with your, you know, full-time event management role. So I went with it. I did, I, I became freelance. So I did do both. I didn’t just kind of completely leap into weddings, but I did leave the employed.

The employed world and haven’t returned for 20 years.

Becca: Yeah. Wow. Incredible. So talk to me then about your wedding planning. How did you find it? Did you enjoy it? Was the business successful? How did it work out?

Kelly: It was a huge learning curve. Utterly huge, as you can imagine, from what I said, without having done much planning, without having properly researched it.

Totally stick my hands up to all of that. 20 years ago, it was tough going and the ideas of it growing, you know, growing fast were not, did not transpire, but we stuck at it. The first couple of years were incredibly difficult. Turned a corner after sort of three years, but it was a, it was a, it was a tough time, but a time that we.

Absolutely loved and had fun and just, yeah, just enjoyed every day and some of, yeah, I have some amazing memories of those of those early years that I look back on.

Becca: And one of the things I love about having guests on this podcast, Kelly, is hearing more about people’s stories. And I think often people can look at you or look at me and think, wow, look at their amazing life.

Look at the job that they’re doing now. But what they don’t see is, All of the steps that came before that. So talk to me about how you came out of wedding planning and how you ended up where you are now. Was it just that it got exhausting? Did you fall out of love with it? What happened?

Kelly: Mm, so this is sort of fast forward quite a few years.

I’ve set up the wedding planning business 2003, about 20 14, 20 15. Things were just kind of changing a little bit and I was just feeling, I, I didn’t quite. Didn’t quite have the, the total love as much as I’d had back in, back in the day, and it took me a long time to, to recognize it actually. But I was feeling just not, my energy just wasn’t, wasn’t quite right on it.

And it was also coinciding with lots of other changes going on in life with family and children and what have you. And yeah, basically I, this was quite a, you know, this wasn’t an immediate transition, but I found business was getting tougher for me in terms of, I wasn’t getting. The jobs that I wanted, the weddings that I necessarily aspired to, and I was just finding it.

Whereas it had been, you know, I mean it’s always, it’s always, you always have to work at getting business, but it was just feeling like a, a bit of a slog. And I, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was. Ultimately not necessarily loving it as much and probably not giving out. Now, I now recognize several years down the line was not giving out the right vibe and the right energy for, for kind of what that needed to happen.

It also, it coincided very fortunately, and sometimes these things, if you look and listen for them, are out there. It, it coincided with me being asked by venues, a couple of venues, wedding venues that I had. Worked with in bringing weddings to couple of clients that I’d worked with and bought several weddings to over the previous years.

Got in touch with me and one of them asked me to do a training for their sort of in-house team. And the other asked me to come and have a look at their venue spaces in terms of helping them grow the business and grow the bookings and look at how they could and how they could be better. And that was the first time that I had.

Had even considered that I could be a consultant or I could work on, shall we say more the business side of weddings. And those two things happened at what I now know or have known for quite a few years was a really good time for me because I was ready for. A transition and a change. So long answer there Becca.

Becca: No, that’s absolutely fine. So what’s interesting in what you said is, and I think this is quite often the case when we look back on situations, is that it took you a little while to realize that that’s what was happening and that you were falling in out of love with the business that you had. If people are listening to this and thinking, I’m not sure if this is where I’m at, what signs, what sort of things should they be looking at to know whether or not.

They are falling out with their business out of love with their business, whether they’re just exhausted.

Kelly: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that’s, that’s a great question. Particularly at this moment in time that we are recording, I see lots of people over 2022 have worked an incredible year and, and exhaustion and just.

Doing too much over because of, you know, post pandemic is, is certainly a thing in terms of what to look for though, if it’s more than a, more than temporary exhaustion. Is, is just, is, is really paying attention to how you are feeling when some of the smaller things are happening, you know, how are you.

How are you reacting to new inquiries coming in? You know, how are you reacting to emails coming in from clients? How are you feeling when you deliver a job? You know how really paying attention and asking yourself and sitting honestly and thinking about some of those things. I think I pushed a lot of stuff under the carpet.

You know, I had, if I was listening to my guts a little bit more. I would’ve picked up on those subtle kind of, mm. Do you know what, I’m not feeling as excited as I should be when that, you know, I’ve got that meeting lined up to go and talk about that new wedding, or I’m just you know, it’s not kind of working for me that I’m going into London, you know, three evenings a week.

You know, and I was, I wasn’t honest with myself for, for a long time that actually some of the, the realities of the role or realities of what I’m doing just wasn’t giving me. The right feelings and I, I think it’s actually, in terms of giving someone advice, it’s actually sitting and honestly thinking about that.

I do, I mean, I do many practices as I, as I’m, I’m now a, a, a coach and I’ve worked with many coaches and I’ve done a lot of work on my mindset and personal development over the last sort of six or seven years. And one of my practices is to sit journaling and I do a lot of. Writing out my feelings and giving myself a bit of time and space to do that is something that I never used to do before.

You’re always rushing onto the next thing quick quick quick. Do everything, you know, get on with the to-do list, and actually sometimes sitting and writing out or thinking out some of the things that, some of those subtle little things that might be going on and listening, listening to what. You know, you’re being, you are telling yourself or what your gut is telling you.

Becca: Yeah. And I think sometimes that internal monologue can be hard for us as well though, can’t it? Because I know when I’ve had discussions with people who are kind of in a similar situation, they’re battling these feelings. Part of them is thinking, if I stop what I’m doing right now, people are gonna see me as a failure.

People are gonna think that I’ve not done a good job, that I’ve failed at this business, even though that might not be the case. And then on the other hand, they’re also struggling with these feelings of. Well, if I wanna step into something new, how should I, am I an imposter? Should I be doing this? Should I, like, are people gonna laugh at me?

So how, how did you deal with all of those different feelings? Does that resonate and how did you move past those and make decisions about what to do about your wedding planning and how to step into the next stage?

Kelly: Yeah, so it’s a great question and. Absolutely. I had all of those things in terms of how can I move from having done this thing?

Should I, what are people gonna think? And then, well, how can I just become a consultant? How can I go and do that? And you know, who am I to do that? And all of those things and that, that took. I probably sat with a lot of that for at least a year, maybe longer, because this was all, you know, it was all happening and, and actually, I mean, in hindsight, I so should have got on with that, you know, quicker.

But we do, we often procrastinate and hold ourselves back. How did I take. The steps forward. Probably two key things. Actually. One of, one of the real sort of catalysts that I can sort of, you know, have in my, in my head was I went, I invested in, conference day. It was a training day. It was with the UK Alliance of Wedding Planners, actually, and I hadn’t, you know, bear in mind, this is seven, eight years ago.

There weren’t necessarily so many industry events, learning events out there for, for planners. But this was a, a business, a really business focused planner’s day. And I went to that event and there were a couple of speakers there that really made me think, one of them was a coach. And she really made me think actually, Kelly, it’s time to grow.

It’s time to do something. It’s time basically. And I came out of that day, it took me about another nine months to actually hire her one-to-one and work with her. But it was the first step, actually, for me, the first step was to getting some help within my existing wedding planning business to help me delegate some of the things that I didn’t want to do or that other people could do better than me.

And that was a bit of a catalyst for that. So I guess I, I put myself in a position where, I opened up to other people and, and I would say that that conference day was the beginning and then I think that. The other part of it for me was because I’d had a couple of venues actually approach me and asked me to consult for them, and one of them in particular gave such brilliant feedback in terms of what they’d gained and how they benefited and how their business was on a best footing.

I was like, okay, and I just. Had to believe. You know, I had the, and this is definitely one of my tips. I have my wall of testimonials of those, you know, good things that people have said, and I still do this to this day. You know, you, I print out those things. I’ve, I actually haven’t got them at the moment, but I used to have them framed.

And I, and I certainly remember back in those early days, really looking at those testimonials and whenever the old imposter would come in saying, Kelly, you can’t do this, you can’t do this. It’d be like, look what these people have said. So

Becca: yes, I a hundred percent I’m with you on that. And what I do now as well is I’ve actually.

Added a highlight on my Instagram called kind words, and I share my testimonials onto that so that whenever I’m having a moment I can go back on there and I can just see them all flick past me on my screen and I can re-share them to my story. Just to make myself think. Actually, yes, Becky, you do know what you’re talking about.

Exactly. Are good at what you do. Exactly. And here’s the proof, here’s what other people have said. But I think that’s important for people to know that even me and even you, Kelly, when we go out there and we’re talking on stages, we still all have these struggles. We all have these doubts and we’re all finding ways to deal with them.

All of the time.

Kelly: Always it’s, it’s how you. You know, there’ll always be for most people that, that there’s elements of doubt and self-doubt and all of those things, but it’s how we recover from it and how, what you do to combat it, isn’t it? I had a good somebody, this isn’t, I’m gonna, this isn’t me that’s invented this phrase, but I heard it from from another coach actually, and I really liked it.

She has what she calls her vault of validation. I thought it was kind of like, you know, wall of fame or vault of validation was what she used. I thought it was quite good.

Becca: I, I love that. That’s, that’s really, really good. So did your businesses coexist for a while then? Did you do both businesses at the same time?

How did that work and how did you balance both things and when did you decide to just go fully into the consultancy?

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. I balanced both for a couple of years, actually, pretty much, yeah, for, for two years. And then I decided in 2017 to go. Fully into, into venue consulting. And then of course I, you know, I do do two things now in terms of other, I think, you know, it’s, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, it’s really common, isn’t it, to where.

Multiple hats and to do different things and some, sometimes it’s right to do multiple things together and, and always do that. And sometimes it’s a, a transition where one is taking over from the other and I think, yeah, it throws up its challenges for sure, but it’s often, it’s often, really rewarding.

Becca: So yes, and we need that spark, don’t we? I think as entrepreneurs we get bored easily, and we’re always looking for the next thing, the next excitement. So if people are listening to this and they’re thinking, actually, a lot of this stuff’s resonating with me and I am looking at my business right now, and I’m not quite happy that it’s what I want to be doing.

Have you got any tips for people about how they take a step forward? How do they start looking to redesign either the business they’ve already got or perhaps a new venture?

Kelly: Yeah, I think the first thing is, is recognizing it and not ignoring the signs. There’s certainly, I did for quite a while, but it’s then looking at, it’s really again, spending the time to sit down and look at, okay, what, what do I would I want to do?

And if that isn’t, you know, isn’t an obvious, actually, it’s sort of rewinding it a little bit. Looking at skills and looking at the things that you are, that you are good at or that you enjoy doing. And also looking at the practicalities of. Because what I see some people doing is creating something new that actually gives them even less time, for example, or doesn’t, doesn’t necessarily tick the box of what they’re trying to aim for.

So I mean, one of the pieces of work I, I often do when I’m coaching a client, and we do some of the sort of inner work, is we look at people’s values and looking really deeply at what is important. To each person, and we’re all different in life. So for me, one of my values is flexibility. So for me, being an entrepreneur, being a business owner, and working from home as I do, I’ve got to have flexibility.

And flexibility to me means being able to take, you know, the time off to attend my daughter’s assemblies, or being able to take a holiday day and, and. Being flexible with my workload. So flexibility is, is, is, you know, is one thing, but we all have different values and for some people it’s, you know, it many, many other things.

So I think it’s actually getting going quite deep actually with yourself and really looking at what. What is important to me at my core, because anything new that you create, you want to make sure that you’re creating it. That it ticks those boxes and it plays to those values that it isn’t in conflict.

Often we can be tempted to go, of course, we all. You know, need and want to earn money. You know, fact, most people need, most people need to. But we also, as, as business owners and entrepreneurs want, have the opportunity to create something that does also you know, play to, to what we want out of life and values.

And so for most people, it’s not purely money. So I would say actually doing some deep work to really find out what matters and making sure that anything new doesn’t run in contradiction to that.

Becca: Yeah, I think that’s really important because it can be easy for people to have new ideas and see shiny objects and start running after something and then realize that’s actually not fulfilling the gap that they had.

And also for some people it might not be starting something new. It might be just looking at what they already have and taking it in a new direction. I dunno if you’ve got any examples of people you’ve seen doing something like that.

Kelly: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s often looking at ultimately what, you know, a lot, a lot of businesses I work with, you know, our service is, is they’re heavily service based.

So it’s actually, it’s not necessarily about creating a new product, but it can be about how do we look after, how do we look after the client, how can we change that up? And you know, sometimes then I totally stick my hand up for it. You know, you get. Stuck in a, we always do it this way. This is the way we’ve always done it.

And I think, I think most people can, can see how that, how that happens. But there is an opportunity to think, actually, you know what, I can break this down and do this in other ways. It could be a wedding planner who, you know, actually, you know, instead of offering a, you know, full planning services is if it may well suit to break that down and offer a slightly more packaged.

You know, slightly more packaged service or elements of planning that sort of works a bit. Now, that may not work for, that may not work for some and I know from a planning point of view, the kind of full plan is the holy grail of, you know, larger fees, larger budgets, all of that. But it doesn’t always, it’s not always the way and it’s not necessarily always the way that will work for every person.

And I know quite a few very successful businesses that have really sort of worked a. Their business and in terms of how they wedding plan to actually suit their life and, and what, and what they want and, and whether they want a, a team and, and how they structure their, their time. So I think it can be shaking up, not necessarily creating a new thing, but how you, how you service clients, if that makes sense.

Becca: Yeah, and I think it’s an ongoing process and I think we need to not feel guilty about that, and I think we need to do that kind of deep work you’re talking about regularly, because what I see is that as people go through different life stages, much like you talked about sometimes people getting married, having children, you know, got elderly parents moving house husbands, or.

Partners who’ve got different work, all different kinds of stresses that go on, and suddenly our priorities can change. And often that means that our business does need to change with it. And I think it’s not feeling guilty about that because I see people racked with so much guilt that they wanna do all these things, but their priorities have changed and they feel like they’ve failed.

But it’s. I don’t know if you’ve got any thoughts about how to kind of reprocess that in their mind rather than feeling like a big failure.

Kelly: Yeah, I think that’s, it’s a huge, it’s a huge area. I mean, my, my belief on things is you can do. We can do great things, and I see brilliant entrepreneurs, business people doing great things, but we can’t do all of the things at the same time.

And I think there’s a whole, there’s so much messaging out there about, you know, achieving this and being the perfect parent and the perfect business that it, it’s. You know, it’s an impossible, an impossible task to do all of the things all of the time. I think obviously it is tough with that narrative going on in the background.

You know, we, it, it is tough to, to, you know, overcome it and to ignore it and do our own thing, but I, but I do think there are, it is about accepting that it’s a bit, you know, this, I, I don’t subscribe to the whole kind of work life balance thing because I think that always makes us feel. Guilty if one that one thing is, is kind of balancing and the other one is, you know, one is up, one is down, and that’s

that’s, you know, the whole sort of guilt thing comes in. I sort of, I think ultimately life is a blend. You know, there will be sometimes when you really push in business and there’ll be sometimes where you actually need to just kind of, you know, jog along a little bit and do things a bit more slowly.

And where family, for example, or where, you know, health or friendships or, you know, supporting others or whatever that might be kind of comes to the fore. And yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s not, it, it’s not an easy one to get over the, the feelings if I should be doing it all, but actually, You know, it’s, you know, I also very much look, let’s.

Let’s be here for the long term. I mean, I’m really proud of the fact I’m still in the wedding industry after 20 years. And you know, I think it’s, I do I do see some people really crash and burn because they, they do just exhaust themselves burn out on all levels, and that is just such a shame. So I think trying to be sustainable and, and and, and.

And sort of realistic, but I know it is, it’s a difficult, I don’t have the magic fairy one to kind of make people not, you know, to, to get, necessarily get rid of, of those feelings of trying to do it all. But I just think it’s, it’s also not subscribing to the. The messaging out there that you know from people that that claim that they can, I don’t know anyone that’s got it all sorted?

Becca: No, absolutely not. And if they say they have, then they probably are not telling us the truth. And I think for me, practically how I deal with this kind of thing is trying to ground myself. In reality because I think we can all get carried away. We can all get comparisonitis. We can see people online doing amazing things or saying that they’re making lots of money or traveling the world in jet setting.

And whenever I kind of go off on one of those tangents thinking, oh, I wish my life was like that. I have to ground myself and remember. Right. What was my original why? My original why was because I wanted to be able to pick my children up from school. So if I’m jet setting off all around the world, every week of the year, I’m actually losing the original why.

So as glamorous as that looks, what is it for me in my life with my family around me? What is the reason I started this business and why do I want that? And actually that’s more important than some of the shiny things we see on Instagram. I dunno if you have any practical things you do for yourself. As well.

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, the, the whole comparisonitis thing crops up, you know, again, it crops up at all stages. It crops up at all, you know, it crops up at all times. But it is, I mean, the first point is, you know, looking at ultimately when, if we are looking at social media, we are comparing someone else’s outward social media face.

We’re not seeing, you know, what goes on inside. And we can probably all say we are guilty of that. We all put out the, the positives not so much the, the true reality. So I think there’s one part is actually just acknowledging that for what it is and what it’s not. And the other thing as you said is, is looking at, okay, what, what do I have?

So every day I do as part of, I mentioned journaling, I. Do my gratitudes. So I wake up I either do it morning or evening depending, you know, bit of, you know, flexibility I mentioned there. I have to be flexibility as one of my values. So I will write what I’m grateful for in the day. So, and you know, some days it’s digging deep a little bit.

Some days it might have been a bit of a naff day, to be honest, and things have not gone well. But I will look at, okay, what. What do I have that I am grateful for? You know, my, my home and a cozy warm bed and my family around me and, you know, and I had a great, I had a, I was a great podcast guest with Becca today, or, you know, that, that’s a really good one.

Of course. But, you know, sometimes, sometimes it’s not always the, you know, the exciting ones. But that’s a really good reminder for me of. What am I grateful for? And again, linking back into what’s, what’s my why, why do you know? One of my why’s a bit like you, Becca, is to be, is to be flexible, to be around for, for my family and, you know, to, to, to be available for them.

And, and that’s, you know, and actually I’m able to do that. So, Whilst also making a difference to brilliant clients who absolutely love working with and feel very privileged that I get such great feedback from them and I get to work with brilliant people who are such action takers and. Just all around lovely human beings, frankly.

Becca: Yes, gratitudes I think is so important and we’ve all got things to be thankful for and we just don’t spend enough time thinking about them. Now, Kelly, I dunno if I’m speaking out of turn here, but I believe that we have both got to a position where we are doing something that we actually love doing day by day.

I love what I do. I see that you look like you love what you do. Again, I’m, it might not all be perfect for all of us all of the time, but we found something that we love. So what I’d love to know from you, Is, how do you now stay in love with your business? How do you keep things fresh? How do you bring new ideas to the fore and keep yourself going?

Kelly: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Excellent. Now great, great question. And yeah, one that I have definitely got a whole heat better at since I, you know, did fall out of love with my wedding planning business. And it was a painful time. I was absolutely determined not. Not to do that again , for it not to be so painful and actually to, to recognize, you know, recognize things a bit more quickly.

How to keep in love with, with what I do, really key thing is looking after myself is, is putting myself higher up the agenda. So what I mean by that is, You know, it’s not necessarily dramatic huge things. It’s just making sure that I am taking breaks, that I am doing the things that are important to me so that I’m not, so I’m going out for a walk every morning.

That’s one of my routines. That’s one of the things I love being outdoors. I do my, you know, we might call it self-care, self-love, all of whatever we, whatever, you know, we, we kind of resonate with. But I. I do a lot more now on giving myself the head space and the time to look after myself because I’m the greatest asset in my business, and most of your listeners will be.

Maybe solopreneurs or small teams, and without you, the business doesn’t function. So it took me a really long time to recognize that I was worth in investing in. And that actually looking after myself is, helps me to, to grow and I mean, For me, it also, it’s, it’s actually being okay with taking time out of the office.

You know, I get my best ideas when I’m not sat at my desk. I get my best ideas when I’m driving, when I’m on a walk, when I’m on holiday, when I’m, I’m somewhere else. So actually, in terms of. Developing and growing and thinking, what am I gonna do next? Actually, it’s, it’s being okay with and, and positively taking steps towards going.

Yeah. Do you know what I am gonna, I’m gonna take, I’m gonna take the day off, or I’m gonna take the half day off and I’m gonna go. Off on a walk, I’m gonna go, you know, go and have lunch with a friend. I now give my myself permission to do that a lot more, and that helps me innovate and grow. So

Becca: I have my best ideas on holiday as well, Kelly.

So I think that gives us permission to go on more holidays because it’s business and we’re coming up with our best ideas when we are away, aren’t we?

Kelly: Hundred percent. And as you know, I love my travel and holidays, so, you know.

Becca: Yeah, yeah. And so do I. And I think as well for me, what I’ve found over the years is just as I grow, recognizing when I don’t enjoy a task and then either.

Letting go of it or employing someone else to do it or finding a freelancer to take away the things that I don’t like doing. Because I think even though we might not be conscious of it, we know what we enjoy doing because they’re the things that go first on our to-do list. And the things that stay at the bottom of our to-do list for weeks and weeks and weeks are the things that we don’t like doing.

My husband says to me all the time, why are you never doing your accounts? And I’m like, cuz I don’t like doing it. But I love. Podcasting. Also I love making videos, I love being out on venue visits. I love talking to people, I love networking. I don’t love doing admin, and I think it’s realizing our weaknesses, the things that we don’t love, and either finding someone to help with them or, you know, finding ways to do it to make it more interesting.

That’s the other thing I’ve been doing, like, oh, I’ll treat myself if I do my accounts.

Kelly: Yeah, exactly. And sometimes it is sort of having a word with yourself and just doing it, isn’t it? And that’s the case for all of us. But sometimes it is thinking, do you know what, actually it’s worth me getting someone else to help me with this.

Somebody else. Yes, you may need to pay them, you probably will need to pay them. But actually it’s, again, it’s looking at that time factor. Is my time better spent doing the things that I’m really good at, naturally good at, and I’m passionate about? Or is it. Is it better to pay someone else? And it’s always a difficult, it’s a difficult equation, but also it’s accepting that other people can do things better than you.

And that was a realization for me. I sort of held a lot of things close to my chest for a really long, really long time thinking, one, I had to do them because I, it was my business. I had to do everything, which, You know is, is not true. And two, I almost sort of was reluctant to open up and let others in almost for fear that, oh, they might do it better than me.

But the last few years, I absolutely embrace it when people do stuff way better than me. That’s great. I love it. So, yeah,

Becca: absolutely. Kelly, thank you for sharing. I think that’s been a really helpful conversation and it’s helpful to dig deep and get behind, you know, that glossy facade of social media where everyone thinks.

Everyone’s got it all together and yeah, I think it’s been a really helpful conversation. So thank you for your time on that. Now, before I let you go, it would be remiss of me not to at least talk to you a little bit about venues because that is where you’re spending all of your time. And while I’ve got your wonderful expertise here, I would love just kind of as a top line.

What do you think’s happening out there in the world of venues right now, and what can my listeners, as wedding pros or venue owners themselves be learning or doing to engage with that?

Kelly: Mm-hmm. Okay. Great question. So what’s going on with venues? I, I think everyone is, kind of excited that, that sort of excited that 2022 is over and done with in a nice way.

In terms, it was a, it was a manic year. It was a brilliant year. A little bit of 2023. Ah, yes. Okay. Okay. It’s gonna be you know, we, we we’re on it. We know what we’re doing. We’ve dealt with so much. We’re, we’re on it, I think is. Is one of the, the kind of feelings that I have in terms of what’s going on out there in terms of maybe different venues.

I’m seeing lots of focus on outdoors. So lots of very much outdoor marquee, teepee, complete farm and land-based. Locations really sort of growing in popularity, a new entrance to the market coming up. So lots of, of, of purely land-based locations seem to be very much a growing trend. So from that point of view, you know, that’s, that’s really exciting.

And I think pandemic certainly sort of pushed that along a little bit as well as a lot of farms diversifying, which is. Big, big part of, of my client base I think I have lots of conversations with, with venue owners about learnings from the last three years and lots of them are saying how much they have appreciated so much more the value of collaboration and supply net that the supply chain and you know, of course, There were, you know, some really, really tough times.

And I think there is now an appreciation of just how valuable it is when you’ve got good people, when you’ve got good companies that work with you. And I, I, I hope that that translates more into better developing working relationships. I know in the historically, you know, not all, obviously it’s never it’s always very nuanced, but sometimes venues hadn’t necessarily opened up either to each other or to developing really.

You know, good relationships with wedding professionals and certainly the venues that I’m privileged to, to work with really va have valued their great relationships and really want to put more, more into that, whether it’s, you know, their wedding professionals or their own team, their own recruits and their own in-house team members.

So, There we go. I could talk for hours on, on this side of things, but

Becca: that is music to my ears. Kelly. As you know, I am big on collaboration, on connections and on people working together, and it’s about time the venues caught up with the rest of the industry, so I’m thrilled to hear that that is starting to slowly shift and change. I’m here for it.

Kelly: I know I’m very lucky I work with, with. You know, I, I would say very progressive venues, which is great. I, I’ve banged that drum constantly and, and I think, yes, whilst the pandemic was not good, it certainly has accelerated that for, in my experience in terms of recognizing that the, the tree value say, let’s hope.

Becca: That is excellent news. Now, Kelly, I always end my interviews with the same question, and that is what is one thing you wish you’d known sooner in your own business?

Kelly: Mm, yeah. I think for me it was not necessarily knowing, but it was giving myself permission to invest in myself to get some support, whether that was delegating or having somebody come into my business.

You know, when I, I hired my first coach and actually support me and, and help me grow and help me develop, and I wish I’d done that sooner, frankly.

Becca: Yeah, absolutely. Kelly, it’s been such a pleasure. Thank you again for opening up and being so honest and open with everyone. If people wanna find out more about you and what you do, where’s the best place for them to go?

Kelly: Yes, so either KellyChandlerconsulting.co.uk on the web or my Instagram, which is Kelly Chandler Consulting, where there’s lots of, lots of juicy content over there. And you can follow along all the things I’m doing both consulting with venues and working with other wedding professionals via coaching.

So I’d love to to meet some new people over there.

Becca: Fantastic. And I’ll make sure to put all of Kelly’s links in the show notes. Kelly, it’s been a pleasure. I hope we can get together or speak at an event somewhere together very soon. Yeah.

Kelly: Brilliant. Thank you so much. I’ve had lots of fun. Thanks.