Please, I Beg You: Stop Trying to Do Everything. It’s Killing Your Business.

Transcript: Please, I Beg You: Stop Trying to Do Everything. It’s Killing Your Business.

Heidi Thompson:

Please, I beg you, stop trying to do everything. It is killing your wedding business.

Hey there and welcome. I’m your host, Heidi Thompson, and I help wedding pros book more weddings, make their marketing easier, and build businesses that get them the freedom and flexibility they’re after.

Today I want to talk to you about something that might hit a little too close to home. Because if you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything in your business and somehow it’s not enough, you’re still not getting the results you want. I need you to hear this. Please, please, please, please, I beg you, stop trying to do everything. It is killing your business.

Now, I know that’s dramatic, but honestly, so is the reality for most wedding pros right now. They are exhausted, they’re over committed, they’re pulled in a thousand directions and they still feel like they’re not doing enough. Does that sound familiar? Because I know. I hear it every single day. Let me paint you a picture of what this actually looks like. It’s 7pm on a Tuesday. You are responding to Instagram DMs on your phone while your dinner gets cold. You haven’t posted today and you feel guilty about it. And you still need to update your blog, check your email for the third or fourth or fifth time today and respond to that inquiry that just came in this afternoon. Oh yeah, and you promised your partner that you would watch that show together tonight.

Spoiler alert. You are not watching that show. Instead, you are going to spend the next hour trying to figure out what to post tomorrow, wondering if you should be on TikTok and beating yourself up for not being more consistent. And this is just a regular old Tuesday in the off season. There is this invisible pressure in our industry that says you have to do it all if you want to succeed. Post every day, be on all the platforms, learn. No, master every marketing strategy, run your business, serve your clients, blog twice a week, send newsletters, network, do styled shoots. Oh, and somehow have a personal life. It’s exhausting just saying it out loud. Let me tell you what I see all the time.

You’re posting on Instagram every day, but your ideal clients aren’t even finding you there. You’re blogging weekly and no one’s reading it. You’re answering inquiries at all hours, but the wrong people keep reaching out and they’re not booking. You’re running Facebook ads because someone said you should, even though you have no idea if they’re working. You’re doing everything, but nothing is actually working together. And here’s the part that really sucks. Even after doing all that, you’re still not booking all the weddings you want. Because more work, more things that you’re doing doesn’t always equal better results. Sometimes it just equals burnout. Remember those stats I shared in the last episode? Over half of wedding pros are working over 40 hours per week. Some are regularly clocking 60 to 70 hours. And for what? Most of them still aren’t hitting their booking goals. Most of them still feel behind. Most say they feel like they’re failing. Here’s what this actually costs you. Those evenings, the weekends, those moments with people you love. Gone. Time you’re never going to get back, spent on tasks that didn’t even move the needle in your business. Money down the drain.

I had a photographer in The Wedding Business Collective tell me she was spending 10 hours a week on Pinterest and hadn’t got a single lead from it in eight months. Another planner was blogging twice a week, beautifully written posts, getting maybe 20 views per post, and none of them converted into paying clients. Florist was running Facebook ads, spending money on them every day, but had no idea what her return on investment was. She was just doing it because someone said she should. Then there’s your health. The stress, the anxiety, the constant feeling that you’re not doing enough. It takes a toll. Trust me, I’ve been there. I shared a bit about that in the last episode. And then there’s your joy.

You started this business because you loved it, and now you’re starting to resent it. You dread logging into Instagram. You feel guilty every moment you’re not working. And then there’s the domino effect that nobody talks about. The overwhelm leads to poor decisions. Poor decisions lead to booking the wrong clients. The wrong clients create more stress. More stress negatively affects your health. The health issues mean you can’t show up fully. Not showing up fully means worse results. And the worst results make you think that you need to do more. And that cycle just continues. If you have fallen into the hustle trap, let me be clear about one thing. This is not your fault. Every business coach out there, every Instagram guru, every successful person in your feed has told you the same lie. Just do more, post more, Be consistent, show up more. If you’re not everywhere, you’re invisible. So you tried earnestly. You showed up, you did the work, and now you’re burned out, confused about what’s actually working, and wondering if maybe you’re just not cut out for this.

We have all been fed this idea just by society, that hustle equals success, busyness equals importance. And if you’re not working 24 7, you’re not serious. But that’s complete garbage, and it’s keeping way too many smart, capable people stuck in a loop of overwhelm. In fact, I was just on a call recently with members of the wedding business collective, and we were talking about, you know, the goal is not to be busy. The goal is not to hustle. The goal is to actually do fewer things that are working better and get more out of them. And we talked a little bit about the mindset that comes with that, because it creeps in that if you’re not busy, you’re not doing it right. If you’re not hustling, you’re not successful. If you’re not working constantly, you know, you’re not a success.

And what actually came out of that conversation was a metaphor that I absolutely love that just, I don’t know, came to me in the moment. And I said to one member, you get a choice. You can either dig 10 holes with a spoon or you can dig two holes with an excavator. You get to make that decision. And you’re going to have to remind yourself that the excavator feels easier. It might feel like cheating, but it’s the best way to get the job done. Now, if you aren’t doing enough, you know, if in your head you’re not doing enough, you may think you need to do more and more and more things. And I want to call this out. It’s not that you’re not doing enough. It’s not the quantity. It’s that you’re doing too much of the wrong things. And here’s where this gets tricky.

When you’re drowning like this, you think the solution is something like better time management, okay, If I just had a better planner, better tool, maybe you think it’s working faster. If I could just be more efficient or hiring help. If I just had a va to help me out another course, if I just had one more strategy, I could get these reels working. But none of those solve the real problem, because the problem isn’t that you need to do everything better. The problem is that you’re trying to do everything at all. And you can’t grow when you’re Drowning. What really breaks my heart is how many genuinely brilliant, talented, creative wedding pros coming to me, saying, I’m working nonstop, but I still feel behind. And I get it. It feels like the only solution is to try harder, push more, work longer. But that just keeps you on the hamster wheel. Because when your business depends on you doing everything, there is absolutely no space to grow, there’s no room to breathe, and there’s certainly no freedom.

You can’t see clearly what’s actually working when you’re buried in doing a million tasks. You can’t make clear strategic decisions when you’re in constant reaction mode. And you can’t build the business you dreamed of, when you’re drowning in the business that you have. What I’ve seen over and over again inside the wedding business collective is this. The moment someone stops trying to do everything and instead focuses on the the right things for them in their business. That’s where the magic happens. That’s when bookings go up and that’s when hours go down, and that’s when you finally feel like you’re running a real business and not just reacting to fires all the time. That’s exactly what I talk about in a freebie I have called the machete method. Really just ruthlessly cutting away what doesn’t work so you can focus on what does. That’s a big part of what we do in the wedding business collective because you don’t need to do more. You need to do less of what doesn’t work and more, slightly more of what actually drives results.

So I want to give you something you can do right now. Not later. Right now. Pull out your calendar. Look at last week. I want you to count up how many hours you spent on tasks that did not directly lead to a booking or serve a current client. I’m talking about social media scrolling disguised as doing research. We all do it. No judgment. Tweaking your website for the 47th time. Creating content that gets crickets. Attending networking events that never really lead anywhere. Learning, learning, learning. Learning strategies that you never implement. Doing busy work that just feels productive. Actually add those hours up. I’ll wait. You can pause me. All right, Got your number. If that number makes you want to cry, keep listening. Because here’s the harder question. What? Could you stop doing today and not miss at all? What are you doing because you feel like you should, not because it actually helps or does anything in the business? That’s where your freedom starts.

So here’s where you are right now. You’re standing in a Fork in the road path 1 keep doing what you’re doing. Keep trying to be everywhere, do everything, and somehow magically get different results by doing the same things. In six months, you’ll still be working 60 hour weeks. You’ll still feel overwhelmed. You’ll still be wondering why it’s not working. Next year, you’ll be having the same conversation with yourself. Same frustrations, same exhaustion, same question of is this even worth it? Meanwhile, your competitors who figured this out, they’ll be booking their dream weddings while you’re still spinning your wheels, trying to keep up with every new platform and trend. Path 2 Stop. Take a breath and get ruthlessly focused on what actually works. Cut the noise and focus your efforts and start seeing real results without killing yourself in the process. Build a business that supports your life instead of swallowing it whole.

This is exactly why I created Wedding Business CEO Summit. Because I don’t want to see a single other amazing wedding pro burn out doing the wrong things. I’ve seen way too many of them. I have watched talented people like you, who are damn good at what they do, who care deeply about their work and their clients, work themselves to death on strategies that don’t even work. And I thought, there has to be a better way here. So from February 16th through the 20th, I’m bringing together 40 experts from across the industry. People who know what it’s like to be in your shoes, who’ve been where you are to help you focus your marketing so you’re not wasting time on platforms and strategies that don’t work for your business. Streamline your systems so you can stop recreating the wheel every single time. Reclaim your time so you can actually have a life outside of your business. Crazy, right?

And finally start seeing the results you have been working so hard for. More bookings with less overwhelm. Here’s what’s important. These 40 experts are not going to pile more onto your plate. They’re going to help you cut through the noise and focus on what actually moves the needle. They’re going to show you what to stop doing just as much as what to start doing. Because that’s what actually works. And if you implement what you learn from just one of these experts, it’s going to start unlocking that freedom in your business.

Registration is open and you can get your free ticket at weddingbusinessceosummit.com you can also comment on any of my posts on Instagram or send me a DM with the word Summit and I will send you that link directly if that’s easier for you. I’m @evolveyourweddingbusiness over on Instagram. And I know that you care deeply about your business and you’re not afraid of hard work, but the goal was never to work yourself into the ground. You deserve a business that supports your life, not one that swallows it whole. So let’s stop glorifying burnout. Let’s stop doing all the things just to keep up, and let’s start building something that actually works. Because you didn’t start your business to drown in it. You started it to thrive. Thanks so much for being here.

I will speak to you again very soon.