End Feast Or Famine In Your Wedding Business With Erinn Bridgman

End Feast Or Famine In Your Wedding Business With Erinn Bridgman

Heidi Thompson:
You’re booked out, you’re busy, and somehow you’re still broke. Today we’re fixing that.

Hey there, welcome to the Evolve Your Wedding Business podcast. I’m your host, Heidi Thompson, and I am all about helping wedding pros just like you make their marketing easier so they can book more weddings with couples they love and build a business that gives them freedom and flexibility. And obviously, a key component to any business is money. And that’s why today I’m sitting down with money coach and friend of mine, Erinn Bridgman. She is a former wedding photographer who took her photography income, she built a $7 million real estate portfolio. She is now entirely focused on helping creatives just like you end the feast or famine cycle for good in your wedding business.

In this episode, we are talking about why more bookings won’t automatically wind up putting more money in your pocket, even though that sounds completely counterintuitive. We talk about how to pay yourself consistently even through slow seasons and the mindset shift that changes everything. Erinn also has a live masterclass coming up that I’m really excited about, and I’m so excited to invite you to. We talk more about that in our interview, but let me give you the link right now so you can go save your seat. It is at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/profit, and it is entirely focused on her profit formula and making sure that you keep more of that money that’s flowing into your business and that you banish the feast or famine cycle for good. All right, let’s get to the interview with Erinn.

Heidi Thompson:
Today I’m joined by Erinn Bridgman, who is certainly not your typical money coach. She went from hustling weekends as a wedding photographer to building her $7 million real estate portfolio, all by learning how to make her business actually pay her. And now she helps wedding pros like you do the same. I’m really, really excited to have her here. She is going to dig into the belief shifts we need to make, the things that hold us back from being able to make more money in our businesses. So Erinn, thank you so much for joining me.

Erinn Bridgman:
Hey, I’m so excited to be here, Heidi. Thanks for having me.

Heidi Thompson:
So I mentioned You worked as a wedding photographer. Tell me a little bit about how you got into doing this work with wedding pros and creative entrepreneurs with money specifically.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yeah. Oh, thanks for asking that. So yeah, I started as a wedding photographer back in 2013 and we were in the industry for about 7 years. So I feel like we were like grandparents by the time we retired. Um, and, uh, I loved photography. Like I loved having a camera in my hand. I loved working with people. I loved the business side, but we were kind of at this place where we were ready to start a family. We wanted our evenings and weekends back, and I had already started building my own personal brand. I was doing a lot of different things within that, and one of the things I was doing was business coaching. So we were able to scale our brand to a 6-figure business within 2 years. And so I was just doing sort of general business coaching on pricing, sales strategy, like I’ll help you make more money, I’ll help you get to a 6-figure mark. Work, you know. And as I was doing this work, people were starting to make more money, um, which is good, you know, if that’s what a coach— if that’s what I’m saying I’ll do as a coach. But what I was seeing is that I felt like I was almost doing people a disservice because they were making more money, but it was kind of all falling through their fingers. I’ll never forget, like, one woman who I was working with, she had like $100,000 of debt, um, with really no clear way of how she was going to like clear the debt and

Erinn Bridgman:
So I felt this responsibility to— I was literally like on the call coaching with her, starting to make what is now like some of my programs and tools because I was like, we gotta make this money like actually serve her. So that’s kind of when I realized, and that was one example of like many women who I was working with and they were creative entrepreneurs, they loved the craft, they loved the photography or the calligraphy or whatever that they were doing, but they were really scared of the numbers. And I’m like, partner, nerd and part creative. So I feel like I was able to be this person who could bridge the gap. And so as I really like observed that that was a need, that’s kind of what made me go all in on that and just really empower women to step into their power when it comes to money.

Heidi Thompson:
That is so necessary because I think women in general, but definitely creatives, you know, kind of shy away from the numbers. They either avoid them or feel intimidated by them or just like, no, I’m just going to stay in my happy place, my creative place. When you see that happening, why are people doing that? What’s really happening behind that?

Erinn Bridgman:
Yeah, well, I think, you know, A couple, a couple of things.

Erinn Bridgman:
One is I like to really put this into the context of a bigger picture because this is a pattern. This is not like an individual story. While each of us do have an individual money story that creates certain strengths and certain blocks and challenges with money, I think it’s part of a bigger sort of systematic issue. And so if we really take a pause and we think about history and women in history and our access to money, which is like literally our access to power. Money is what runs the world, if we’re being really honest. You know, it wasn’t until the 1960s that a woman could open a bank account without a man. And this isn’t even like if you didn’t have a husband, you still needed a man to be there.

Heidi Thompson:
So crazy.

Heidi Thompson:
It’s so crazy how recent that is, right?

Erinn Bridgman:
This is like What, like less than 100 years ago. In the ’70s, you couldn’t open a credit card without a man. It wasn’t until the ’80s, I believe, that like mortgage stuff started to— like, we are—

Erinn Bridgman:
it’s crazy close how much different the landscape was.

Erinn Bridgman:
And that is definitely impacting us now. That still exists, that patriarchy and that systematic issue with money is still existing currently, but the severity of it is very close to where we sit in history now.

Erinn Bridgman:
And if I’ve done some obvious work around this, but like if you look at how media talks to men versus how they talk to women currently, now you’ll see most media when it’s speaking to women about money, it’s all about budgeting, it’s all about saving, spending less. And when it’s speaking to men, it’s more directed about like investing and making more and being wealthy. Savings does not build wealth. And so we can just see the discrepancy of how even like media is speaking.

Erinn Bridgman:
You can see it in even parenting, even at the most well-intentioned parents speak to like the stats show, like speak to boys different than they speak to girls. I mean, I literally was taught a budgeting system and I had 5% going to a dowry. Heidi, a dowry. God.

Heidi Thompson:
Oh my God.

Erinn Bridgman:
So I give all of this context to say you’re not alone in maybe your fears or your beliefs around money.

Erinn Bridgman:
This comes from a bigger systematic issue. And so when you choose to listen into this conversation, when you choose to do the money work, you’re playing a part in like really changing history.

Erinn Bridgman:
And that’s what just makes me so excited for women because we’re in this really cool phase in history where we’re getting more access to money.

Erinn Bridgman:
Women are, I think, projected to, to like more entrepreneurs, more people making more money.

Erinn Bridgman:
Like, and so it’s just a very cool time in history to start to lean in and not feel the, the shame and the fear, and like let yourself walk through that so that we can change history and we can create the legacy in

Erinn Bridgman:
families and our communities that money really helps us do.

Heidi Thompson:
It’s so interesting as you’re talking about that, I’m just thinking about like the lessons we learn as girls from our family. And don’t get me wrong, a lot of them are super valuable and super well-intentioned. Like, I know I learned from my grandma, from my mom, like, hey, even if you aren’t working, you sock away some money. Like, that’s your security in case you need to, like, get outta Dodge, you need to leave whoever you’re with, you need to take off with your kids.

Heidi Thompson:
Like that is so recent and so real that I don’t think we think about the impact of that just on our brains.

Erinn Bridgman:
Oh yeah.

Erinn Bridgman:
I mean, I remember like when Brent quote unquote asked my dad for permission, right? And part of it, my dad, we were in college and he was like, hey, and my dad’s like, one of my favorite people, he’s amazing, but he was like very caught up on like, you need to be able to provide and, you know, very typical gender role there. And I’m like, wait, like I’ve been providing for myself and I freaking sold books door to door to pay for college. Like, why do I need a man to provide the money? But right, it’s just kind of woven throughout our story, which impacts very much our subconscious.

Erinn Bridgman:
Like our subconscious is developed predominantly in early childhood.

Erinn Bridgman:
Like by the time we’re 7, we have a lot of that wiring created. And so those nuances, those things that maybe we’ve never even noticed or thought about before are surely now impacting how we think, how we manage, how we grow, how we make our money now.

Erinn Bridgman:
And so having awareness of that is super important.

Heidi Thompson:
And it’s so important because, you know, we think about money as like this practical tactical thing, but like The psychology directly impacts what you allow yourself to be capable of, which is so woven into the work that you do.

Erinn Bridgman:
I know.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Heidi Thompson:
So what do you think female entrepreneurs have going for them when they actually dig into their money? What do you see happen?

Erinn Bridgman:
Well, I, yes, and, and I kind of lent to this just a tiny bit when we were talking about you know, where we sit in history.

Erinn Bridgman:
And now we see such a rise in women in the workforce, but also women starting their own businesses, which is what I know you and I are— we work with entrepreneurs in particular, wedding pros.

Erinn Bridgman:
And so when we think about like our actual access to money and our ability to generate more of the money, we have a great advantage in comparison to a 9 to 5.

Erinn Bridgman:
And this is why I say you have to be really careful about what financial advice you listen to, because as an entrepreneur, you are a unicorn.

Erinn Bridgman:
You’re cut out differently, you have different advantages.

Erinn Bridgman:
And so you want to be really taking in financial advice from someone who gets who you are, not like traditional 9-to-5 advice.

Erinn Bridgman:
So one of the huge, obviously, advantages I’m lending to is like you can go make more money. A majority of people going to work 9-to-5, they have one lever when it comes to creating access to build wealth, and that is like spend less, which is very restrictive energy. But as entrepreneurs, we have this other powerful lever, which is go make more.

Erinn Bridgman:
And you don’t have to go negotiate your salary with your boss or prove yourself through this corporate ladder of years and years.

Erinn Bridgman:
You can simply do things like sell another wedding or, you know, build that lifetime customer value of the current customers you have to just immediately bring in more money.

Erinn Bridgman:
So that’s a huge, huge part. And then I also think like when it comes to our mindset, who we are as entrepreneurs, We are risk takers. Whether you feel like if you’re listening and you’re like, oh my gosh, Erinn, no, you’ve got me all wrong. Like, I’m not a risk taker.

Erinn Bridgman:
If you are an entrepreneur, this is a different DNA than others because you’re doing one of the riskiest things and saying, I’m going to go to the marketplace with my product, with my service, and I’m going to exchange that for money and sort of like bet on myself. And that’s huge.

Erinn Bridgman:
And I think also our mindset is, especially if people are tuning into your podcast and they’re consuming this type of content, like

Erinn Bridgman:
We’re women who want to grow, who want to learn. We’re investing in growth and listening to podcasts or hiring coaches, joining masterminds. And so I think it means that we’re primed and we’re desiring transformation. And so that can bleed right into the desire for financial growth and growing our money story and moving past money blocks and things like that. I think we’re— that’s why I feel so called to this work and to working specifically with women, women who are entrepreneurs, who are wedding pros, because yeah, I think we’re leading the front lines of change.

Heidi Thompson:
It’s so cool when you do realize that running your own business means you can pull some levers and generate more money. I remember before I realized that And then after I realized that, and now I’m like, there’s no situation I can’t, you know, whether it’s something I need to get myself out of, it’s an opportunity I wanna take, that I can’t figure out a way to generate that money to get some sort of cash injection. And like you said, that’s not normal for the general population. That’s not something the average person is even remotely able to do. Like, you could pick up a side hustle or something, but your main salary isn’t gonna jump $20,000 because you just want it to, right?

Erinn Bridgman:
So the, the level of control—

Heidi Thompson:
and I think most women don’t realize how much control they actually have here, like, laying right before them.

And that is why we do our work, right, Heidi?

Erinn Bridgman:
Absolutely.

Heidi Thompson:
Because you can create more. I mean, you created this whole business out of thin air. You can create more opportunities for people to buy from you. You can create more opportunities for you to bring in revenue. And that is still like, when I really think about it, like, is a foreign thing.

Erinn Bridgman:
But when you get your head around it and you realize what makes possible when you actually have proposal.

Speaker 3:
That just on a call with someone today, and we had done a ton of the work around—

Erinn Bridgman:
she could really see, like, we had the—

Speaker 3:
we’ve, we’ve worked together for a bit, and she, she’s had my money system. She can see the cash flow, she can see, um, projections and out. And so because we had done that work and because she’s making more money, we were on the call and me, like, able to say, like, we can pay off this credit card. So we paid off like a $3,700 or $3,400 credit card balance. And that’s like, because she’s making more money and because she’s organized with the money, she can confidently make a decision like that.

Erinn Bridgman:
And that’s immediate. That’s immediately going to impact her ability.

Speaker 3:
I mean, that recaptures like $200 a month that she can now distribute to savings or other things, investing, stuff like that.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yeah, it really does put you in the driver’s seat, which I get can be scary and can be, you know, a little intimidating sometimes.

Heidi Thompson:
But when you look at what that makes possible, especially, you know, if no one else around you has this capability, if like you’re the only person in your family, in your friend group that is an entrepreneur, like, It’s like discovering a superpower.

Speaker 3:
It’s crazy. Yes. So that’s why you have to have more people like seeing this, right? Even though, even if you’re scared, even if you’re anxious, even if all those things, like leaning a little bit more into the power and the possibility and a little bit less into the fear.

Erinn Bridgman:
Do you feel like the issue there is awareness, fear, or both?

Erinn Bridgman:
I think it’s a— I think it’s, yeah, both.

Speaker 3:
I think generally when I, I get the opportunity obviously to talk to lots of women, and I mean, one of the top emotions I hear people share when it comes to money is like stress, anxiety, overwhelm, confusion.

Erinn Bridgman:
And so I think that those initial intense emotions keep us then from even entering into like beginning to understand, beginning to start to create what, like, understanding around the numbers and things like that. And so

Erinn Bridgman:
That’s why I think, you know, really thinking right now, like, what’s my top emotion? What do I feel around money? Okay. And what is that feeling then causing me to do? I mean, some people are feel abundant and feel powerful and that’s great. But I think sometimes that initial emotion can block us from even moving forward into understanding and owning that part of our power.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, and then we shut ourselves down. And it’s such an awful thing to see happen to people because, as you were saying, like historically there have been so many barriers and so many people in our own way, and then we get in our own way and it’s like, no, we’re so close.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yes, yes.

Heidi Thompson:
Well, something that I’ve talked about many times is how You cannot abdicate your marketing. I see a lot of people in the wedding industry, you know, they’ll sign up for like different advertising opportunities, different platforms like The Knot, WeddingWire, and be like, that’s my marketing, sort it out.

Erinn Bridgman:
Mm-hmm.

Heidi Thompson:
And you cannot abdicate and outsource control of your marketing. I know a very fundamental belief of yours is that you cannot outsource that ownership and that leadership. Around your money. So tell me a little bit about that. If someone has the inclination of like, no, I want someone else to handle this.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yes. And we understand, like, we’re having so much grace for ourselves and understanding, like, maybe where that comes from based on history, based on our own personal story.

Erinn Bridgman:
And so I think being really, like, gracious with ourselves, but aware of, like, where we might be shrinking back in our leadership and what’s that— what that is causing in our world. Or preventing us from living into is really important. So a lot of people will say things like, oh, Erinnn, like, I, I have a bookkeeper, or I like have an accountant. And that’s sort of the piece that they think of as like, well, I can check the box, I have like my money stuff figured out.

Erinn Bridgman:
And I get it.

Erinn Bridgman:
And I, like you said, like, we’re creatives, like, we’re, we’re wedding pros, we’re— we fall in love with photography, we pick up a camera.

Erinn Bridgman:
Many of us, and then we take photos of our family, and then our friends start paying, and then our friends’ friends start hiring us.

Erinn Bridgman:
And we’re like, oh my gosh, we can make money with this calligraphy thing or this floral thing or this planner thing or whatever. And so you kind of fall into this role of entrepreneurship and really understanding that the CFO hat is not being an accountant, it’s not being a bookkeeper, it’s much bigger than that.

Erinn Bridgman:
A bookkeeper like what they’re going to do is they’re going to keep your books tidy, right? They’re going to take your receipts, your transactions, they’re going to categorize them. They’re recording the past and that’s important. And depending on where you’re at in business, that certainly shouldn’t be something that you’re doing. That should be a task that you outsource.

Erinn Bridgman:
And then an accountant is really designed to, you know, file your taxes, hopefully, you know, help you save money with your taxes, make sure you’re in compliance, deductions, things like that. But you as the CFO, you’re the one that’s in the seat to create the fit, the, the, the vision. Where are we going? You’re the one who can only assess like profitability of your offers, can make decisions on what makes sense to outsource, what doesn’t, which is all based on like ROI and numbers, how this money actually impacts your your personal life and what to do with the money when you make the money. So nobody can do that work for you. Only you can make those decisions of vision and leadership and strategy. A bookkeeper or accountant are not going to do that for you. And so when we are willing to put that hat on, um, that’s when we can start to be now not just letting the numbers happen to us, but we get to start to be in control and make decisions. And this can be like baby steps, right?

Erinn Bridgman:
Like if we start to just like one thing, it’s like start to look at subscriptions you’re paying for because you’re not just avoiding it, you’re looking at what you’re spending your money on and you realize, oh my gosh, I have 3 subscriptions I don’t even use anymore and I can cancel those.

Erinn Bridgman:
And that’s $70 a month back in my pocket. Like you can, you can do micro actions to begin to put yourself in this position, and you’ll see like what that does for you, and it makes you hungry to do more. So wherever you’re at, I mean, the micro step could be just looking at your bank account balance every day, you know. So you need to kind of maybe take a moment now and reflect on like, what am I currently doing, and what’s a micro action? Because if we try to make massive change and massive leaps or multiple things, it’s not sustainable when we look at how habit change happens.

With humans. And so I think finding micro-actions is super important and remembering kind of having that grace with ourselves and remembering you were not born— like, because a lot of people would say, I’m not good at, I’m not good at math, or I’m not good at numbers. And you were not born— you didn’t come out of the womb knowing math. You didn’t come out knowing how to shoot your, your camera on auto or use I/O planner software. So you just remember this is a skill you can learn, just like you’ve learned many other skills. So sometimes we put this, like, numbers, math, money on this really far-outreaching, like, pedestal that just is really complicated. We can’t— but it’s just like learning anything else that you’ve learned in your entrepreneur journey, and it’s something that you can learn, um, as well.

Heidi Thompson:
I like that you frame it as this really isn’t even the math, the, the numbers that I think some people had beaten into them as a child, basically, that they’re not good at. So, you know, they, they’re like, I don’t want to do math, I hate math, you know, I get anxiety around it. You’re not in that bookkeeper role, you’re not in that accountant role. You are in the bigger picture, the bigger vision of What do I want my money to do for me? And then making decisions around that so that it actually gets you there. I don’t know, that’s a much more exciting position to be in than, you know, being in the weeds with your different transactions and reconciling all of them, which I think is what a lot of people think the financial work in their business is.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yeah. And that’s just like the tip of the iceberg. And I go more into this in the masterclass that we’re going to offer people to join. And so it can be way more exciting, way more empowering. And you’ll see like, that’s just like the first layer so that you have the data so that we can, like, I go into my 360 view of numbers and methodology in that masterclass. And so I think You know, owning that and understanding like, oh, my role is different than just like the basics of bookkeeping and accounting is really important.

Heidi Thompson:
And it’s more fun. Like, you get to make decisions that actually have big impacts.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yeah, that actually like, oh, because I made this decision and I’m doing these things now, I can like take my whole family on a trip to Disney. Like, that’s freaking exciting.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, like, that is way more exciting than, all right, let’s go look at, uh, this report because I’m supposed to look at this report? Like, no, I want to get the vacation out of it.

Erinn Bridgman:
Exactly.

Heidi Thompson:
I am selfishly excited for this masterclass, which we’ll tell people more about in a bit, because I myself, I don’t shy away from numbers, but a lot of times when I look at larger financial reports, I have a hard time connecting the dots between what, what this is and what this means for my decision-making. And I think that’s a gap that a lot of people have that they could really benefit from this training.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yes, exactly. That’s why I have a whole— we’re going to work through the paid method framework. And that’s why I, I, I try to say I speak nerd and creative, and it’s okay if, I mean, you don’t understand what the reports mean, you don’t understand them, you’re like leaning in like, I get it, Erin, I want to do this work. We’re like, okay, like, what work do I do Um, so I’m excited to kind of like help be a person who can bridge that gap and excited for walking through that paid method and talking through my 4-part framework. So it’s gonna be fun.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, I can’t wait. And I know, you know, a lot of us compare ourselves to other people in our industry that we see on Instagram and it’s like, oh, everything looks like so amazing in their world. And maybe things look good on the outside in your world, but internally internally, it just feels

Heidi Thompson:
broken and chaotic. What is the cause of that when it comes to creative entrepreneurs?

Erinn Bridgman:
Yeah, I think, you know, I have the privilege of inside of my programs, inside of my one-on-one coaching, like I— people take off the mask, right? And we have to because we’re screen sharing and you’re showing me your bank accounts or—

Heidi Thompson:
right, like I know what’s really happening.

Erinn Bridgman:
You’re— we’re looking at your profit and loss statement and I know it is such a tender place. And I say it’s like more scary than talking about your sex life, like talking about your money life, right? People, there’s— there can be so many emotions, so much shame and all that. So I feel very honored and very privileged. But what I see is like often, I mean, we’re talking six-figure, multi-six-figure business owners who are doing the good work. They’re hustling, they’re making the money, they’re— they have proof of concept. But then when we look at What is that doing for you? I see a very consistent pattern of female entrepreneurs paying themselves least, last, and inconsistently. And I get pushback that especially wedding pros like, well, I’m, you know, my, my business is really seasonal, so it’s really hard to pay myself. And that’s one of the things we’re gonna talk about in the masterclass is. It doesn’t matter seasonality. And this is, this methodology is specific for wedding pros. And I made a majority of my money 7 months out of the year. And so when we have the right financial system, the right way to look at this, you can, you can pay yourself consistently and you need that. You need to increase your pay. You need to make it consistent because that is how you build real personal wealth. And just to make that tangible, when I say real personal wealth, like That is how you have more money to get the monthly massage or to go on more dates or to plan the family vacation or to have money in savings. So when emergency comes, you feel financially secure. You know, that’s what I mean when I say building personal wealth. It is those things that are really not— you have to cross over from the business into personal money strategy. And if there’s very little money coming into the personal world and it’s not consistent, you can’t make a real definite, um, strategy around it. You can’t allocate money towards, you know, your Roth, things that build for the future, towards your current life. And so I think remembering that you might feel like, as you look on Instagram, as we look at the— and all these people that we might feel intimidated by, or we feel like we’re an faster, remembering like the metrics that are really important is what is actually hitting your personal life. How much is, you know, how much are you making and how are you using that money that’s hitting your personal world? And that’s the focus, not maybe some of the vanity metrics that we think look successful. I mean, you, who cares if you run a $500,000 business that costs you $500,000 to run? Right? Like that’s the same as having a $0, but a $0 business that spends $0. It’s just a lot, that’s just a lot more hours and energy and you know, so we, we, we have a business ’cause we love it, but it needs to pay us and it pay us well.

Heidi Thompson:
And I think something people don’t think about until it happens is that if you aren’t paying yourself, if you’re not seeing the rewards of all of the work you’re doing, it’s really easy to become resentful and bitter.

Erinn Bridgman:
So yes. And when I’m working with people and we’re starting to work on like pricing strategy, some of that, so I help people make more money, but then I help them make more money that actually pays them more and has a plan. So what happens often is when we’re like, okay, we gotta raise the prices, the resistance is often like, but I don’t wanna leave people out and I wanna, you know, but I’m like, literally, if you keep doing this at this price, you will resent your clients, resent your business. You’re gonna burn out. You’re gonna end your— you know, so we want to plan for longevity. And so we, we have to make sure if you’re paying yourself $500 a month, you’re gonna

Erinn Bridgman:
get real sick of that real fast.

Heidi Thompson:
Yeah, yeah. And I get, like, we all have to start somewhere, but I— what I’ve seen happen more often than not is people will do the starting point where they’re either not paying themselves at all or they’re paying themselves very little, and then they won’t scale that up as they’re making more money.

Erinn Bridgman:
So we need to build the habit. So for those who are listening right now and maybe feel, like, inspired, what is a responsible Even if you don’t know all the numbers and know all the ins and outs and all that, hopefully you’re coming to the masterclass. But what can you put on auto? And if you wanna put it on auto, this is a huge thing I teach around money is we want to remove the human element around money because that’s what then makes us like question and, and think and maybe not do it. And then, so let’s automatically put in $100 a month, you know, if you’re just starting. And then let’s make sure you’re constantly assessing and increasing that. And that’s exactly right, Heidi? Like, you know, when you start, there’s all different stages of entrepreneurship. And when you’re starting, you know, we wanna prioritize your pay, but we can’t prioritize it as much because we have all those startup costs and we’re probably at a lower price point. So lower profitability, all that. But exactly what happens is people scale and then they don’t scale the salary. Yeah.

Heidi Thompson:
And then you’re just in a situation where you’re working super hard, you’re working long hours, you’re putting so much into it, and you’re not getting any more out of than when you were doing this, you know, 5 hours a week on the side before you quit your job.

Erinn Bridgman:
Exactly.

Heidi Thompson:
I love that you focus just as much on the personal side because like you said, if it’s not funding your life, if it’s not making the impact, like that is the function of money in our lives is to get us access to the things that we want. And if it’s not doing that, we’re just gonna start eating ourselves up inside.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yes, exactly. Money is power. And I say the more money and the more we have control over the money, we’re getting to put more dollar signs behind our values. So you see that you want— you have these desires, you have these things. It’s not bad to want more. I think often as women we struggle with like wanting more. And I would say, okay, well, what do you want more of? Because we have this idea that rich people are icky. That’s like one of big, you know, one of the mindset blocks I talk through in a training. And okay, so you want more money so that you can have your kids in these sports. Okay, so you value your children having like this experience in life. Or you want more money to go on dates with your partner. Oh, okay, so you value your marriage. And so really like look at where you— I, I— one thing I ask people and journal on this, think on this, like If you were to be given an extra $1,000 a month, what would you do with it? And if you look at what you do with it, it’s probably pretty beautiful and it’s just showing where your values are and you’re getting to put the power of money behind your values.

Heidi Thompson:
I like that because it makes it more real. Like we can say, oh, you know, it allows you to do these things, but if you fundamentally shift the way you look at money as being able to give your kids like the childhood experiences you didn’t have, oh my God, is that so much more emotional and powerful and it drives you more.

Erinn Bridgman:
Exactly. And it, and it breaks down this like facade, this like weird belief of like money is just icky and I shouldn’t want more of it. Okay, why do you think that? You know, that’s probably a preconditioned subconscious thought coming from what you heard your parents say or others say.

Heidi Thompson:
That’s like, let’s kind of debunk that, which kind of connects us to, you know, what you were saying earlier about how, you know, you can have this business that is making all this money, but all the money is just like flowing right out, right? You know, it’s like a bucket with the bottom cut out. And I think a lot of people think, I just need to make more money. I just need to book more clients, but that is not necessarily really the solution either, is it?

Erinn Bridgman:
No, I feel it— no, you’re right. And I— we talk about this more in depth in the masterclass, but wanting more money is a great thing, like I just said, right? But we have to have— want to have more of the right money, and we need to know what

Erinn Bridgman:
to do with the money that we get. Because if you have a bucket, like you just said, that has the bottom blown out of it, it doesn’t matter how much you put into the top of it, it all comes out and it’s like, where the heck has it gone? And I hear so many people say like, Erin, I make all this money, like where the heck is it? I don’t feel it in my life. I don’t. And that’s because we’re not looking at where, because it actually doesn’t just poof and disappear.

Heidi Thompson:
Like, right.

Erinn Bridgman:
But this is a very constant. And so if people are resonating like, yep, that’s what, like, yeah, Yeah, it’s— we can find where it’s going. And what’s super empowering about this is then we can decide, well, where do we want it to go? And that’s when you get to be in the driver’s seat, and that’s when you start to feel like, I can direct the power of money where I want it to go. And that’s a much better relationship with money than sort of like closing our eyes and just hoping for the best.

Heidi Thompson:
You know, people always say that like more money doesn’t like change you. It just amplifies who you were to begin with. And I’m sure you see that with your clients. Like, okay, you still have the same problems. They’re now on a bigger scale. Now you have bigger problems with the IRS. Now you have more money going out because you didn’t address the underlying issues or build a system that actually, like you said, like directs your money. As you were saying that, I was thinking of it kind of like a fire hose. Like if you can harness that thing, it is powerful. But if it’s just like flailing all over the place, like it is kind of by default, it doesn’t really fix anything.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yeah, it just has— you just have a bigger mess to clean up. Exactly. Exactly, Heidi. And I get that too. You know, when, when we were first scaling, we, we scaled really fast with the wedding industry and We saved taxes as if we had made the same amount of money and same amount of profit the year before. Well, obviously if you triple your profit, you triple your tax rate, right? And we hadn’t, you know, and so we had a surprise like $12,000 tax bill that was, oh my God, I’ll never forget being in the kitchen and Brett and I talking about that. And it was so stressful and there was so much tension. And, and my, my thing is like, okay, like My goal is in all my work with people that they don’t feel that and they are prepared and they are proactive and they never have to have a surprise tax payment. The amount of people that come to me that have, and I share this because I think it’s important for people to know they’re not alone. Like the amount of people that have, like they couldn’t pay their taxes, so now they have a tax debt that they’re making payments towards to try to catch up on taxes. Very common. And, um, So more money can equal more chaos and more stress and more unpaid taxes if we don’t have a system to organize it and direct it. Yeah.

Heidi Thompson:
And I can see how, you know, people think, oh, once I hit the 6-figure mark, once I hit the $500,000 mark, once I hit the million-dollar mark, then everything will just magically be fixed and go away. And it’s just like, No, now you got new problems.

Erinn Bridgman:
Exactly, exactly. And that’s why I’m excited. I’m excited for the masterclass and to get some more training into women’s hands to help them. We’re gonna walk through my framework there and we’re gonna talk about some of the most common things, like the 3 numbers that are lying to you and like how to look at them differently. We’re gonna get into a little bit of like a psychological hack that’s going to help you actually engage with money in a different way that helps you your dream life. Um, and so yeah, I’m just excited. Thank you, Heidi, for inviting me to do that and, uh, be a part of the mission and helping women feel more empowered when it comes to their finances.

Heidi Thompson:
I’m super excited. It’s happening on March 11th and you guys can save your free spot at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/profit. But tell us a little bit more about what we’re going to get out of attending.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yes, of course. So I’m going to have— for those who come live, I’m going to have a couple of special treats for them. Heidi, one of my good tools that people love— it’s a paid product, but I would love to give it to people who come live— is my Sacred Money Archetypes assessment. So this is an assessment that I was trained in a while ago, and it has 8 different money archetypes, your personality around money, your strengths, your challenges. So it’s a whole assessment and then some work you can do based on what your results are.

Erinn Bridgman:
So you’ll get that for coming live. But we’re going to talk about what are the 4 main leaks that we see happening around your money. We’re going to get way more in-depth into what those are, how you can change those. And I’m going to talk to you a bit about personal wealth. We’re going to go through my 5 tenets of personal wealth creation. So because you, you kind of mentioned, Heidi, how I’m not just about like the business, but I also am like, well, what do you do with the money when it comes into your your world. So we’re going to dive into that framework as well. It’s going to be super juicy. I keep it fun. Lots of gifts, lots of visuals so that we can understand the concepts and break them down real easy so you can feel like you can walk away with action. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Heidi Thompson:
I love that. I am really excited about it. So definitely, as you’re listening to this, it’s happening March 11th. Grab your free spot at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/profit. I will be there. I will see you there. And I can’t wait to dig into this because this unlocks so many things for wedding professionals. And I should say, this is specifically for wedding professionals. So if you’ve ever looked at money advice and been like, yeah, but you don’t deal with the wild seasonal swings that the wedding industry does, this is gonna help you with that. So I’m really excited.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yes, yes, yes. It’s specifically for wedding pros. I have been in your shoes. I was in your shoes for 6, 7 years. I used my photography business to make my first investment into real estate, which we’ve now scaled our portfolio to over 30 doors. And so I want to help you do the same. I want to help you direct your business to making the life that you really desire. Like, what you stepped into, um, in entrepreneurship was probably for more time freedom, more financial freedom, hitting your dreams. Also, you loved it and making impact, but those things as well. And so I’m excited to get this training into your hands. Awesome.

Heidi Thompson:
Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for putting together the training. Of course, that link is in the show notes. Thank you for everything, Erin. I appreciate it.

Erinn Bridgman:
Yes, this has been such a fun conversation, and I hope people are walking away just from this with some things to reflect on, maybe some tangible things that they can do. And I’ll definitely be so excited to meet everyone on March You love it.

Heidi Thompson:
Well, you heard the woman. The training is coming up on March 11th. You can grab your free spot at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/profit. And I really think everyone listening to this podcast should join this training because one area I think all humans wind up struggling with at some point is money. It’s not an intuitive thing we just know how to manage and make the most of and how to get more profit out of our business and how to get more time out of our business and all of these things. These are skills we need to build and I’ve never met a business owner, quite frankly, that couldn’t do a better job of managing their money, of focusing more on the profit and the, yes, the impact of your business, but also what you’re getting out of it, right? We give so much to our clients and I wanna make sure that you are getting what you set out to get out of this business, maybe even more.

So go grab your seat over at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/profit. This is gonna be a great masterclass. I am definitely looking forward to it and I love learning from Erin about all things money. I just really love the way she talks about money and the way she weaves it into all of these other areas that it touches our life, whether it’s our personal goals, our personal wealth building, our time freedom. All of these things relate to money. So you have to get a grip on this if you want to reach these goals. All right, that link again, evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/profit. I will see you on that training and thank you so much for taking the time to tune in today. I will have all of the links in the show notes at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/350, and I will speak to you again very soon.