How You Can Stop Wasting Money On Wedding Business Coaching And Education

In this episode we’ll cover:

• Why so many wedding pros waste money on wedding business coaching and education
• The core problems that education cannot solve for you, no matter how good the program is
• The real difference between learning and implementing
• How to know whether a program will actually move your business forward
• What to look for in wedding business coaching and education before you invest
• Why information is not the solution when you do not have structure, systems, or clarity
• How to avoid impulse buying during sale seasons like Black Friday
• The questions to ask yourself before spending another dollar on education
• What successful wedding pros do differently when they invest in support

How You Can Stop Wasting Money On Wedding Business Coaching And Education

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
Want to stop wasting money on wedding business education and coaching? This episode is for you.

0:00:08 – Intro
In a world where wedding professionals are struggling to market and grow their businesses, one podcast brings together top experts and actionable strategies to help you build the wedding business of your dreams. This is the Evolve Your Wedding Business Podcast. Here is your host, Heidi Thompson.

0:00:39 – Heidi Thompson
Hey there and welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Heidi Thompson. I am here helping wedding professionals just like you book more weddings with clients they love and build a business that gives them freedom and flexibility. And today we are taking a closer look at something that so many wedding pros wrestle with, especially as Black Friday approaches. They want to grow, they want to improve and they want support, but they are also scared of wasting money on education or coaching that doesn’t pay off.

If you’ve ever felt a mix of excitement and dread when you look at a program or workshop, you are so not alone. Maybe you bought something before and it sat untouched. Maybe you joined a course and it felt overwhelming. Maybe you signed up for something that gave you a lot of ideas but no clear direction. Well, your brain remembers that, so it tries to protect you by saying you know it might be safer not to invest at all.

But here’s the real truth ROI is not about luck or personality. It comes from a set of conditions that anyone can create in their business, and when you understand what those conditions are, it becomes much easier to make grounded decisions and get real results from whatever you choose to invest in.

First off. We need to address the fact that buying, even though it feels like the action that we need to take, does not create results. I think one of the biggest misunderstandings around ROI is this belief that signing up for something, buying something, will automatically create change, and it doesn’t. Access alone does not create transformation. It’s the same as signing up for a gym and then never going. You know, paying the monthly fee doesn’t actually do anything to improve your health, and wandering around the building without a plan or not going at all doesn’t either. The change comes from using it with clear intention and your investments in your business work. The same way, the return comes from what you do with the information, the structure and the guidance you receive.

So let’s talk about the conditions that actually create ROI, and I was sitting down to think of these and I can see them in my own business. Every single time I’ve gotten a really good ROI from, whether it’s a course, a program, a tool, a coach, anything like that.

The first one is clarity of the goal, and most wedding pros struggle with ROI because they don’t ever define what they want the investment to help them achieve. I’m talking specifically, not just book more weddings, that’s super broad. They join with a vague idea of hope that it’s just going to fix everything. It’s going to be this silver bullet and that makes it almost impossible to know what to focus on. But when you set one clear outcome you want from something you’re purchasing, you immediately know what matters and what doesn’t. You can also make it a lot easier to filter out noise and stay on track and stay focused. In The Wedding Business Collective, we always start by getting clear on your specific goals so that every action you take has a purpose. You’re not just doing things to do things, and I see that being a trap that really most wedding professionals get stuck in.

The second condition is implementation, and wedding pros rarely struggle because they’re not trying or because they’re not working hard. They typically struggle because they’re trying to do too much at once and when you pick one approach, one focus and stick with it and actually give it room to work, everything changes. A lot of people implement things the wrong way. They don’t create a clear plan of taking action. They don’t break down big projects into small steps they can actually follow, so they never feel like they’re making progress.

You cannot do Instagram or SEO your website. Those are huge projects that need to be broken down into manageable pieces so that you can actually do something with them and so you can see progress that you’re making. That’s why, inside the Wedding Business Collective, we identify which actions are going to move you toward your goals and then break those down into simple, doable steps you can follow without feeling overwhelmed. We do that in our 90 day planning sessions and this is why members love them so much, because they don’t have that vagueness around implementation. They know exactly what task needs to get done next Tuesday in order for them to reach their goals.

The third condition is support and accountability. Most people underestimate how much faster they can actually move when they have support. When you try to figure everything out on your own, you end up second-guessing yourself, running in circles and getting stuck on small things that slow down the entire process. This is just as true in my business as it is for yours. Support gives you clarity faster. It removes the roadblocks. Accountability helps you stay consistent, and having a place to ask questions removes so much of that mental load. You don’t have to solve every single problem completely on your own, and this is why community and coaching matter so much for your ROI. You aren’t left to wonder whether you’re on the right track. You know you are. This is why I don’t view support as a negotiable thing in my business. It is a need to have. I have to get input from outside of my own brain or I know I will spiral, I will waste a ton of time, I won’t make progress as quickly or as easily as I could, and I don’t want that. So I choose to get support in a multitude of different ways.

The next condition is focus, and I see this be an issue for really most creatives, and a lot of wedding professionals lose their ROI because they’re trying to fix 20 different areas of their business at the same time. When everything feels like a priority, when everything feels important, you can’t actually focus on anything and nothing gets done. Focus is not just a nice to have. It’s what turns effort into results, and I found that most wedding pros don’t actually know what works for them when I ask them okay, like what has worked for you in the past to attract and book your best clients? And they don’t know what works for them because they’ve never stopped this constant frenetic movement and activity to check. Focusing really allows you to put your energy behind a small number of actions, like very small, maybe one or two things a day that actually make a difference. Inside the Wedding Business Collective. We help you decide what to focus on right now, what can wait and what you can ignore completely, and members are genuinely shocked by how many things they can just ignore. That clarity alone boosts the ROI of anything you invest in significantly.

The last condition is tracking, because many results happen slowly, especially big ones that matter most. You know SEO, referrals, inquiry, quality, pricing, confidence so many things we do in our business grow over time. It’s like this snowball effect, and if you’re not tracking any of it, it’s easy to assume that nothing is working because you don’t feel like it’s working, you can’t see it working and so you abandon the plan. Too early Tracking gives you evidence, clear proof, that your actions are making an impact, and our brains need this reinforcement to see that the actions that we’re taking on a daily basis are paying off. Even if we don’t see the big results yet, we can see them paying off. It helps you course correct without throwing out the entire strategy, which I see a lot of people feeling like they need to do, and once you can see your efforts paying off, even in really small ways. It gives you that little bit of dopamine you need. That makes it so much easier to stay consistent long enough to get a full return on investment for whatever it is you’ve invested in, whether that’s a course, coaching, a workshop, coaching, a workshop anything.

Now, the number one reason wedding pros waste money on education is they buy tactics without having a strategy to anchor them. Tactics are individual actions like posting on Instagram, creating reels for Instagram, writing blog posts, running ads, doing a styled shoot. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of those actions. The problem is that tactics don’t work in a vacuum, when they’re just floating out on their own. Strategy is the foundation that makes tactics effective. It gives every action a purpose. Strategy tells you who you want to attract, what they care about, where they spend time and what message your marketing needs to have in order to reach them. Once you know that, the tactics stop feeling random, you stop feeling like you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall because you’re not taking random actions anymore and they start working because they all point in the same direction. They’re all anchored to this singular strategy.

Strategy is what I specialize in, because without it, nothing works.

And when people come to me and they say oh, I’ve tried this, I’ve tried this, I’ve tried this, I’ve tried everything and nothing works. I know that this is the problem. When you do not have that foundation, everything, no matter how good it is, feels like spaghetti on the wall. You can follow a tactic perfectly and still get nothing from it, because the missing piece was never the tactic. It was the lack of strategy underneath it why you’re doing it, exactly how to do it in a way that makes it work.

This is why members inside The Wedding Business Collective get more traction because once they build a real marketing foundation that gives them a strategy, whatever tactics they choose finally work, they stop guessing and they start making choices that are directly connected to, and clearly support their goals.

Let’s talk a little bit about fear-based decisions and grounded decisions as we’re going into the holiday season, because understanding the difference between these two can save you from a lot of expensive mistakes. Fear-based decisions feel urgent and pressured. They can come with thoughts like I need this or nothing’s going to change. Everyone else is already ahead of me and I need to catch up. I’m going to miss out Grounded decisions, on the other hand, feel steady and intentional, like. This actually solves a problem that I have, and I’m excited about it. I know I will use this and how I will use this. I understand what outcome I want from investing in this.

When you base your decisions on clarity of what you want out of something, rather than fear and just kind of scrambling, you are far more likely to see a meaningful return, and Black Friday can create some bad decisions. Black Friday brings, you know, a ton of options your way, and that can be a really, really positive thing. I am always excited about Black Friday. I’m like doing my shopping ahead of time, deciding what I want. Black Friday gives you access to tools, education and support that can move your business forward faster at a lower cost. The key to that, though, is choosing the things that truly support your goals, rather than chasing whatever happens to look exciting or sexy in the moment.

This season can be a really smart time to invest in your business, as long as you’re clear about what you need. When you look at offers through the lens of your goals and your strategy or if you don’t have strategy, I can definitely help you with that it becomes so much easier to tell which opportunities are genuinely going to help you and which ones are just shiny objects. They’re going to lead you off track. They’re nice to haves, but they’re not need to haves and I would say, if you don’t have a strategy, starting there is really going to help, and I have some things for you this Black Friday that are going to help, especially in the Wedding Business Collective.

So here is the grounding reminder for this time of year you don’t need everything that comes your way. Most people do too much. You only need the solutions that are going to move you toward the next step in your business. And if you don’t know what that step is, it’s also a good sign that you don’t have your marketing foundation, your strategy, in place. But when you stay focused on okay, what is the outcome I’m going to get from this, Black Friday becomes a chance to make really good decisions that support you and set you up for real results.

I once worked with a wedding pro who had purchased so many different courses that she couldn’t even remember half of them, and she kept hoping each one would finally be that thing that fixed everything, that silver bullet. But she was stuck in that position where she didn’t have a clear strategy or a clear goal. She was buying random tactics when what she needed was strategy and direction, and once she stepped back, she built her foundation. She picked one goal to focus on. Everything shifted. She stopped wasting money and, perhaps more importantly, stop wasting time because your time is money and she started booking clients that she loved. The difference wasn’t the hot new tactic or course. It was the clarity that she had.

So how do you choose investments that are going to pay off for you? Before you buy anything, I want you to ask yourself does this solve a real problem that I have? Will I be able to use this in the next 90 days and, if not, do I know exactly when I’ll be able to use it? Maybe you have a gap in your calendar where you have some downtime in I don’t know March, and you know that’s going to be the perfect time to implement this, but where is it going to go on your calendar? Is this strategy or is it simply another shiny object tactic? Do I feel clear on the outcome I want from this? Do I know what success would look like as a result of purchasing this? Is there support? If I run into any questions. I find that most people who regret purchases skip these questions. So I want you to take steps to, pretty much as much as possible, guarantee your ROI.

I want you to set one clear outcome and identify exactly which parts of the program the tool, the coaching program, the resource, the membership are going to help you reach that outcome. You need to be able to draw a connection between those. I want you to block time to use it. You just heard me say where does this new thing go on your calendar? So, to give you a very recent example in my business, I just signed up for an SEO program and the very first thing I did is go through my calendar and block off time to implement what I’m learning. I don’t even know specifically what I’m going to be learning each week. I know the outcome I want from this, but I know that I need to block off time to actually implement it, or I’m not going to do it and, let’s be honest, you probably aren’t either. So part of this comes with taking control of your time and blocking off time to actually do these things that move our business forward. You also want to make sure you reach out for support when you need it.

I found that some people have this tendency to get stuck and stay stuck. Don’t stay stuck. I tell this to members of The Wedding Business Collective all the time. You are not bothering someone by asking questions or getting clarity. Honestly, the thing that would bother me is if I found out you’ve been stuck for like three months and you didn’t tell me, so I can’t help you. You also wanna make sure you’re tracking what you’re doing and what’s changing. Give yourself a full 90 days before you decide whether it worked or not. Just commit to doing whatever it is for 90 days. That’s why we plan in 90-day chunks in The Wedding Business Collective, because it’s enough for you to make progress on something, but it’s also short enough to get really specific about what are the individual actions you’re going to take. These steps are simple, they’re very realistic and they make a significant difference in your results.

So this Black Friday, I want you to know that you’re not behind. You don’t need a pile of new tactics. You don’t need to be on all the platforms. You don’t need to throw out and fix every part of your business at once. Doing that is only going to overwhelm you. You only need the support that moves you one step forward. And when you make that choice with clarity, roi becomes the natural result.

And if this conversation has helped you get clearer about what you need and how to get a real return on your investments, I have something that is going to support you even more to get a real return on your investments. I have something that is going to support you even more. I’ve put together a Black Friday preview where you can see everything I’m offering this year during my five days of deals, so you can see ahead of time what fits your goals, what doesn’t, what’s going to truly help you take the next step. And, by the way, if you’re thinking, oh, I really need that strategy part, or, oh, I really need to take control of my time, I got stuff in there for you, don’t worry. But it’s not about like grabbing everything you see. It’s about finding solutions that make sense to the problems that you have right now so you can move forward with confidence instead of guesswork.

A lot of times, we don’t know what the real problem is. We don’t know how to fix it because we don’t really understand what the problem is. We think the problem is oh, people are just ghosting me. Or we think the problem is this particular platform isn’t working. But I would say eight to nine times out of ten, when I really dig into someone’s business with them in the wedding business collective, that’s not the real problem.

Usually the real problem is something along the lines of you don’t know who you’re marketing to. You don’t know what they care about. You aren’t know who you’re marketing to. You don’t know what they care about. You aren’t clearly standing out. You don’t have that marketing strategy foundation in place. So it doesn’t really matter what tactics you throw on top of it, it’s still not going to work.

So I’ve got this Black Friday preview for you. You’ll see the full list. You’ll know exactly what each offer will help you with. You can plan ahead without any stress. You can see that preview at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/BlackFriday and when the deals start they will be on that page as well.

They’re going to be running one deal each day from November 24th through the 28th and I will make sure I link that in the show notes. I cannot wait to help you figure out what your next step is and to guide you. It’s my favorite part of my job, and if you’re like I don’t even know what my problem is send me a DM. I would love to talk to you and help you figure this out. I’m evolveyourweddingbusiness over on Instagram, but I can’t wait to help you choose the right support for your business in a way that feels really clear, simple and grounded, and make sure that you get a return on your investment. Thanks for listening and I’ll speak to you again soon.

Links & Resources:

Black Friday – 5 Days Of Deals
The Wedding Business Collective – join for just $1
The Lazy Girl’s Guide To Marketing Your Wedding Business
Episode 111: How To Beat Shiny Object Syndrome & Focus On What Matters

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