245. Your Small Thinking is Keeping You Small

And I say that because it's just so amazing to see how this community comes together to see how our speakers and our sponsors are so available and so invested in the attendees and to see how the attendees are so invested in each other. It was literally 3 and a half days of community building, networking, authentic relationships, deep diving into the profit and marketing and sales and team of our businesses.

And encourages you to really take a look at what's working in your business and what's not working in your business and to evaluate. And that's really what my opening keynote was about. I get so excited every year to deliver the opening keynote. It's really a charge to our attendees it's a charge to our speakers and sponsors to all of us that are in the room to really dig deep into what it is that we came there for.

So every single year, I don't take it lightly that these attendees have taken three and a half days away from their business. And I know that there's a reason that you came, right? You spent the money on the ticket. You spent the money on the travel. You took the time away from your business. For what? Not just to be there and kind of be like, Oh yeah, I got to attend this event. No, that's not what this event is for. It's not where to be seen and who to be seen at this event.

This event is to dig deep and to make real changes into your business. And we take that very, very seriously. So this charge that I give to our attendees every single year is to remind you, what did you come for? What do you want to get out of this summit? What do you need to do over the next three days to change your business? So today we're gonna replay my opening keynote. from the Wedding Pro CEO Summit, and I hope that it ignites a fire in you.

I know that so many of our attendees came up to me and they were like, Brandee, that was exactly what I needed to hear right now. And honestly, it was a message that I needed to hear myself as well. So CEOs, I hope that you love this episode and I'd love to know what you think. DM me over on Instagram or share the episode. On your stories. Always when you share, that's the best way for us to get new CEOs into our podcast community. We absolutely love having you here as listeners.

So I'd love to know what you think about it. Make sure to tag me. I'm at Brandee Gaar or drop into my DMs and let me know what you thought about it. You guys, I'm so excited for you to hear this one. So let's dig in. Every year, I open the Summit. And I always say, like, I don't really want to teach. I don't want to teach here. That's what we have these amazing speakers for. What I do want to do is kind of give you a charge for the week. Like, what are you here for? Right?

So in year one, I'm going to go back a little bit. Every year I have a charge to our students. Okay. So in year one, my charge to everybody was you cannot learn what you think you already know. One thing that you might not know about me is I get a lot of my education from TikTok. So this was, this was TikTok education. Um, but this is really, I, the reason I want to go back to the charge that I had in year one and year two is because they still apply. They still apply so very much.

You cannot learn what you think you already know. And basically what this means, there's not a single person in this room that doesn't have a successful business. There's not one attendee here that was like, I opened my business yesterday and I've never been a wedding vendor before. No one. So we all come in. With a little bit of a, I know what I'm doing. I have a successful business. I came because maybe I'll pick up a nugget or two, right?

But the way you pick up a nugget, the way that you change your business, the way that you rethink the way you're doing business is if you come in, you drop the ego and you say like, I want to learn as if I've never known this before. I want to learn as if I've never known how to build a team. I want to learn as if I've never been able to close a console in my whole life, right?

Like you might be great at sales, but what if somebody that's here, what if one of the speakers that's here or another attendee is able to give you one thing and if you let yourself absorb it as if you're a beginner, instead of saying like, Oh, I already know that. I don't need to go to that. I'm going to go to my room because none of the sessions, none of the sessions are really like what I need in my business right now. I think that's false. I do think that's false.

I think there's always something that you can learn. But you have to have the mindset to be ready to learn it. So I want you to come in here with a beginner's mindset. Like not one person in this room is a beginner, but that's the mindset you have to come in with, right? We all have really successful businesses, but I promise you there's more to grow. There's so much more that you can learn. So come in with that beginner mindset.

Don't think you already know all the things, but make sure you are sharing the things that you do now. Okay. So, and then last year's charge was to take what you need and leave the rest. Who feels overwhelmed when you look at the workshop schedule for tomorrow? Right. I'm like, yeah, everybody's like, I don't know which one to go to. Like there's so many and y'all, we don't even have that many. Like I'm so, it's so important to me that we don't overwhelm you.

And still I hear everybody like, there's so many, I don't know which ones to go to. Here's the thing. You know. You are a successful business owner. You know what you came here to learn. Several of you that I spoke with at orientation or at the welcome party yesterday. I specifically said to you, why did you come? Like what made you come to the summit? No one's like, I don't know. I thought what else am I gonna do with 3, 000? No one thought that. No one thought that, right? Everybody came.

You purchased the ticket to come here. You took time away from your business for a reason. What was the reason? You all answered the questionnaire, so I actually have your reason if you really need me to refresh your memory, but you came here for a reason. Don't let all the things in. If they, if, if, I guess what I'm trying to explain to you is like, just take what you need, right? What do you need from this summit? What do you want from it? And then go seek out that information. Right?

And then don't get overwhelmed by all the rest. If you don't need help with your marketing, then focus on your sales, right? If you're like, I, I get enough leads, but I can't seem to close enough of them, right? Like my conversion isn't there, then focus on the sales and don't necessarily go to like the system stuff and then be like, Oh my gosh, I have to redo my website and now I have to have like this whole CRM built out. Do you like, do you really need that?

Like, let's focus on what you need. Take what you need and leave the rest. You're here to change your business. What about this summit is going to change your business? Take that in and leave the rest. Okay. So this year's charge, if you wanted to, you would. Okay. So that's this year's summit theme. I'm going to push you guys a little bit today. Um, I'm definitely going to be the tough love today.

And the reason is because So, when I think about what I'm going to present this morning, I really genuinely pour through your questionnaire. I'm like, what do they need to hear? What do you, what do they need to hear to change their business? Right? So if you wanted to, you would. Okay. So grab your journals. We're going to do an exercise. Brandon's going to help me out. This is, um, interactive with yourself. Okay, so, interactive with yourself.

I'm going to let Nada do the community exercise, um, this afternoon. So this is here by yourself. Grab your journal, and we're going to do an exercise called 7 to 7. So basically what I want you guys to do, spend three or four minutes, and I want you to write down what you do in a typical day. So I call it 7 to 7. I don't know any of us that only work 7 to 7. But, um, you're like, really Brandee? I work like 7 to midnight. But, I want you to write down what you do on a typical day. Right?

So, literally, list it all out. What is it? Is it client work? whatever it is that you do every single day. Think about a typical day in your business. And I just want you to start writing it out. What do you do? And Brandon's gonna put some music on real life story. You guys can finish up while I tell you this story. Some of you might know that my husband also works full time for our business. And, um, that wasn't always the case. I started my business when my oldest daughter was one.

And she turned 18, uh, a couple months ago. And, um, I ran my business for five years by myself. We had our third little girl. My middle is back in the back right there, but we had our third little girl. And I don't know about you guys, but listen, there's only so many babies that one mom can handle. Okay. And I was like, blackout mode. Like I was like, I'm going to leave her somewhere. One child is not going to make it home. I'm just letting you know, like one child's not gonna make it home.

Our business was thriving. It was thriving. And I just said to my husband, like, we have to close it. Like, I can't do this. I can't be a mom of three girls and do this business. And he was like, no, like the business is really growing and I believe in it and I'm going to quit my job. And y'all, we weren't making enough money for him to quit his job. Okay. Let's be real clear about that.

Um, but he literally gave us notice the next day, that October, which was 13 years ago, this October, he quit his job and we've worked together ever since. However, I ran my business by myself for five years. So having my husband come in and have an opinion about it, It was interesting. Um, so anyway, he said to me one day, I vividly remember this story. He's like, I don't think it was this serious. But I vividly remember this story.

We were standing in our kitchen and he was like, I think he'd maybe been working with us for like a year. And he was like, So like, what do you want from the business? What's your, what's your goal? Same question I just asked you guys. What's your goal? And I was like, what do you mean what's my goal? I don't know. Let's make it tomorrow. Right? Like, I was like, ah. And he was like, no, but like, I mean, I quit my job. You know, we do this. This is the only income coming into our house.

What, what's your goal with it? And I said, honestly, to pay the bills. Like my, my goal is that every month the bills are paid. And he was like, you're joking, right? Like that's your goal for our business? And I was like, legit. Yeah, I'm dead serious. Now thinking back on that, I can understand where he was coming from because that sounds ridiculous, right? Like who starts a business? Has their husband quit their job? And my goal is just like less so we can pay our bills.

Now that was my 27 year old naive self, right? I was probably 30 by then. I don't even know, but I was young and stupid. And I was like, not thinking about retirement, not thinking about what the business needed to bring us. Right. But I really was like, I just want to pay the bills. And he was so disappointed. He was like, I just don't understand. Like, why would you not want to think bigger than that?

What's interesting to me, especially when I thought back about it is that wasn't actually my goal at all. My goal, which I refuse to say out loud, was to dominate the wedding industry. Like that was my goal. I wanted to build the largest planning firm in Orlando. That was my goal. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the biggest. I wanted to be the one everybody looked up to, but I refused to say that out loud. Why would I say that out loud? Even if my husband knew, I wouldn't say it.

I wouldn't say, I want to make enough money so that we can go on vacations and pay for our kids private school. I wouldn't say that, because I was afraid. Why? I was afraid we would fail, right? Because I was like, if I just say, if bills are paid, then I won't have that fear of failure. Has anybody else ever felt that way? I know. Susan's in the back. Yeah. And I know, I know. I talk to my students all the time. There's a bunch of you here and I'll say like, what's your goal for your business?

And this small talk comes out, right? It's like, um, I don't know, you know, maybe like, maybe like a hundred thousand, you know, maybe like 200, 000, right? You, you say out loud your small goal, right? But why? I know no one in here has a small goal like that. Right. I know some of you, anybody else wanna dominate? Yeah. Right. Like we wanna be top of our market. We wanna be the thought leaders in our market. We wanna be the ones that everyone else in our market is like, I wanna be like them.

I wanna be like that business. But we say it out loud. Did anybody write that down? Right? Because you don't wanna say it out loud. Why not? Why not? Why not be like, I want to flipping dominate, like I want to be that person, right? We think small, our small thinking is what keeps us small. We have so often, like I was even talking to Katie last night, I'm gonna call you out. I didn't ask for permission.

So I love you, Katie, and I'll beg for forgiveness later, but I was talking to Katie last night and we were talking about this specific topic. And. When I went back to my room last night, I was like, we literally are talking about this. I do it all the time too. I still do it. Katie is like, I, you know, I know you told me this is the year I hit 200, 000. I know you told me that. We've talked about it. And she's like, I'm so close to hitting half of that, but I don't know that we'll hit it.

And I'm like, why wouldn't you hit it? It's June. You're almost at half. Why wouldn't you hit it? Why? Why wouldn't you? Push to hit it, right? And I'm pushing her because I'm like, I know you can do it. Like I, I'm, I have zero doubt, right? That she can do it, but we are afraid to say out loud. I know I can do it. You know, you can do it, right? You know, you can do it, Katie. That's right. I'm like, come on girl. Go with me here. Okay, so Let's make this practical for a second.

Look at your goal. What'd you write down? Anybody want to tell me what they wrote down for their goal? Penny. Okay,. So Penny said she wants a better team, but she also wants a business that can run itself, that she's able to provide careers for other women, right, other team members. Okay, anybody else? Yeah, here. I like that. I want to change the way we experience weddings. Okay, yeah, Megan. Oh, to retire her husband. I love it. I always like to tell, tell people that I retired my husband.

He's like, I don't know, I work really freaking hard. That's right. I'm like, well, I mean, you don't have to ask for vacation time. So it's kind of like retired, right? So, so now that I've kind of given you a little bit more of an idea, what if I asked you to rethink that goal? What would you write down now? So think about it for a second. What would you write down now? I'm telling you, your goal is too small. I'm telling you, your goal is too small. I know it is.

Whatever you wrote down, it's too small. What would you write down now? Anybody want to tell me? Yeah. Increase your market? Is that what you said? Yeah. Increase your marketability. Yeah. Right. More. Right. Okay. Who else? Who audacious goal you're willing to share? Yes, Miriam. Okay. Miriam wants to hit half a million dollars. Okay. And her business. It's a big goal for a wedding pro, right? Julie. Yeah. Get my digital product launched. I love it.

Okay. So these are some examples of bigger goals that you might have, right? Here's the question I want to ask you though. So Julie, I'm going to use your example. You are saying, I want to get my digital product business launched. Okay. So I'm going to put you on the hot seat for a second. What would you have? What, what's keeping you from launching it? Next week. Oh, sure. That's an easy answer. Amanda's calling you out in love. Calling you out in love. Okay, so that's good. So you know.

You know you're sitting on it. You know you're sitting on it, right? Okay. Okay. Miriam, what about you? What's keeping you from What would you have to do Let me rephrase the question. What would you have to do today? You know. What would you have to do today if you, if your goal was actually half a million dollars? If when we do budgets this year, I make your goal half a million dollars, I say, Okay Miriam, we're writing a budget for half a million dollars.

What would you have to do differently in your business to hit it? Second revenue stream, right? So Miriam is a planner. She just recently launched rentals. And she knows she needs to focus on it to hit half a million dollars, because that's how that goal is going to come in, right? I want you guys to think to yourself, How So, what would I have to do differently in my business today to hit the goal I'm not willing to say out loud? What's the, what's the goal you're not willing to say out loud?

And then what? Yeah, go ahead. Ooh. Okay. A four hour work week. I like it. I like it. What would you have to do differently in your business today? What would have to change about your business today for that to happen? Yeah. A hundred percent. So you know what you have to do. Why aren't you doing it? Yeah. That's right. You're working on it. I'm here. Okay. I love it. And this is what I want you guys to think about. Okay. I was asked the same question recently.

And I'll be super transparent with you guys, right? I was asked the same question recently. I was asked, what is the goal for your coaching business? And my answer was, I want to hit a million dollars in revenue. Why? I don't know. It sounds funny. I don't know. I don't know that I have an answer for that. It's a stupid goal. But, it's just the goal I wanted, right? I was like, I don't know, I want to hit a million dollars.

And so, my business coach is in the room, and she said, Well, how close are you to hitting it? And I was like, yeah, we'll hit it this year. And she was like, then why is that your goal? Like, that's a terrible goal. And I was like, I don't know. I feel like it's a pretty good goal. Like, I'm super excited about it. And she was like, but why wouldn't you make your goal 3 million or 5 million? And I was like, cause we'll literally never hit that. And she was like, why?

I didn't know I was going to call her out either, but I was like, we'll, we'll literally never hit that. I wouldn't, that doesn't, that's not even attainable or reasonable. And she was like, okay, but what if it was like, what if your goal was 3 million? Let's just pretend, right? Let's pretend your goal is 3 million. What would you have to do differently today? to hit it. And the perspective change I had was so shocking. Why?

Because to hit a million dollars, I don't actually have to change that much in my business. That's attainable. It's going to happen this year, whether I try that hard or not, because we've got the ball rolling, right? So what I want you guys to think about in your business is, let's say your goal is 200, 000, right? To be honest, Katie's going to hit that goal whether she likes it or not. Like, it's going to happen because she's already got the momentum. She's already got the ball rolling.

She's got the team. She's got the infrastructure. She's going to hit it no matter what. What if we made Katie's goal half a million dollars? What would she have to change to actually hit that? Right? And the reason I ask you that is because when you're only trying to become 1 percent better, you When you're only trying to hit like, you know, I want to do 10, 000 more next year, or you hit 100, 000 for the first time and now you're like, well, my goal is 120, 000 and I'm like, for what?

Like, why? How would you not hit 120, 000 next year if you just keep your doors open, you're going to hit that, right? Like natural growth. What, what are you not doing? Why are you not pushing yourself outside that comfort zone? Because here's the thing. Let's say we make Katie's goal half a million dollars, right? Yeah, she may not quite hit half a million, but I. Sure. Is that guarantee you she's going to hit more than two, right?

Like, because the, her habits are going to change in her business. My answer, when I was asked this question was, I know for a fact that I would have to be on Tik TOK more. I hate Tik TOK so much and I hate it. So, but I knew that was what I needed to do. I needed to be on Tik TOK three times a day. I hate that answer. I think it's stupid. I hate that I have to feed the beast of Tik TOK. I loath that app so much, but I know it works, right? So I was like, okay, I'll do it.

But here was what happened instead. I said, I'll do it, but do you remember this? I was like, but you don't understand. I have three kids. I have two businesses. I have over a hundred students. I have, I work in ministry with my kids. I, all the things, all the things, right? You don't understand. I can't make three TikToks a day. There's no way. I don't have time. Right? Anybody else think that? As I'm sitting here going, well, why aren't you doing the thing?

Why aren't you doing the thing you know you need to do? Well, Brandee, I have my seven to seven, right? I have, look at all the things I already wrote down on my schedule. Look at your schedule right now and tell me how many of the things on your schedule that we did in the seven to seven exercise, are needle movers in your business. Needle movers. So that means they're either sales, marketing, or team development.

How many things that you wrote down in your normal day have to do with sales, marketing, or team development? I'm guessing very few. Anybody have more than like five things they do on a daily basis every single day that has to do with sales, marketing, or team development? Good job, Miriam. Yes. Anybody else? That's the thing, right? So when I looked at my schedule that y'all, y'all, I was embarrassed. I'm not going to lie. Like I made all the excuses. I was like, I can't do it.

I don't have time. I'm not doing it. I don't have time. And I, I genuinely felt like that. I was like, I work 12 hours a day as it is. Like I literally get up, take a shower, get on my computer. I don't get off my computer until six o'clock at night. It's filled with zoom calls. It's filled with all the things. And in reality, what I was saying was it's not important to me. It's not important to me to grow my business. I know how. I know what I have to do. I'm just choosing not to.

I'm choosing to fill my day with all the other things, all of the non revenue generating tasks that I let fill my day, every single day, instead. That's an excuse. That's an excuse, you guys, right? This is what, this is the difference. Have you guys ever heard the saying, um, someone with half your talent is running circles around you? And we know it's true. Anybody else have anybody in their market? And you're like, dude, they don't hire them. But you're like, how do people keep booking them?

Right? Because they know that the revenue generating tasks are the things that they actually have to do every day. Alex Hormozi, love Alex Hormozi, but he says a focused fool will accomplish far greater than a distracted genius. If you spend your day every single day doing client work. Doing back end systems. Listen, Julie, don't come at me. Systems are important.

But, if you spend every day focused on all the back end, the number of people that tell me, I'm doing a brand refresh, I'm doing a brand rebrand. Again, hire Amanda to do it. Like, you shouldn't be involved in that, right? Like, you need to be revenue generating. You need to be marketing. When you tell me, I don't have time to show up on social media. I outsourced it. The person who I outsourced it to sucks. She's not even doing very good, but whatever. She's putting something up.

That's your business. This is your business. This is your livelihood. You marketing, you selling, you the CEO, everything else in your business besides sales, marketing, and team development is a distraction to the growth of your business. You know that, but what we do instead, I'll give you an example of a schedule. Okay. This is an example of what my calendar looked like, my 7 to 7, when I still did weddings.

Get the kids to school, shower, get ready, emails, client work, right, like all the things. I'm sure y'all's schedule looks a little bit like this too, right? One sales call. Do you see any marketing in here? No. Because I was like, I don't have time to show my face. I don't have time to show my face on social media, right? So this is what my calendar used to look like. It does not include, this, this is just a general day. Right?

When you all wrote down your 7 to 7, you probably didn't even include things like staff meeting, sales follow up, putting out fires, putting out fires, posting on social media, networking events, financials, team development, like all these things. Lunch. Going to the bathroom. I don't have a bathroom break on my calendar. I'm like, I need a bathroom break. Right? So, it doesn't even include these things and you still have 12 hours of work written down. Right?

And it absolutely doesn't include venue tours, vendor nurturing, networking events. Right? All the things you know you need to do did not make it on your 7 to 7. I would bet money there's very few of you on your 7 to 7 that have these sales and marketing things on your 7 to 7, right? And the problem with that is that Parkinson's Law applies. We know we have to sell. We know we need to do the follow ups. We know we need to market in our business. But we know we need to do it.

It doesn't make it to our calendar. It's not a priority in our business. We think it is. We say it is. But in reality, most of the time when I'm talking to a wedding pro, they're like, Oh my gosh, I haven't done sales follow ups in a week. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, I don't, you have to follow up with your leads. You have to put that time in your calendar, right? So Parkinson's law is work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

So if your sales and marketing and team development aren't on your calendar, guess what's going to take up all the 12 hours you set to work today? And the reason that we're staying up till midnight or 2 a. m. getting work done is because your sales and marketing is an afterthought. It's what you're doing at 2 a. m. when you're like, I don't know, Brandee told me I had to post something on social media. Let me grab a picture from last weekend's wedding, right? It's an afterthought.

It can't be an afterthought. All of the other work will fill the time if you don't put it into your calendar. 80 percent of your success is based on 20 percent of your work. So 20 percent of your work is your sales, your marketing, and your team development. That's it. It's not a lot, you guys. I'm not asking you to change your whole entire schedule, your whole entire life. I'm not asking you to make massive changes and be like, okay, well, Brandee said I have to like get all this stuff done.

So now I have to get up at 4 a. m. every day and I'm so tired. You will not find me before six at wake at all, ever. Okay. I do not get up before six, but small changes, small changes. We're just talking about 20%. When you focus on the 20 percent that's the needle mover in your business, I promise you will see a difference. I adjusted my schedule about two months ago, and I cannot tell you guys the difference it has made in our business. So much. Okay, here's what I want you to think about.

I want you guys to make a list of the things that you know you need to do in your business Every single day before the day gets in. So now, every single day, right, I'm going back to the Parkinson's Law. I know my calendar opens at 10. And I go zoom all day long, starting at 10. Every single day. For me, I was like, I used to say like, Okay, I know I need to make a TikTok, but I'll do that at the end of the day. I'll do this at the end of the day. I'll post this story at the end of the day.

Guess what doesn't happen? I don't do it because I'm tired. Somebody was mean to me. Uh, a client was rude, whatever. Right? And then you're just like, I don't want to make a TikTok. Like I was so tired. So you don't. And then you put it off to the next day. Instead, what I want you to do is I want you to use Parkinson's law and I want you to think there is a, uh, why can my mouth not work? There is a list of tasks that have to be done every single day before I start my day.

Before I allow a single client to call me, before I check my emails, before I check my Slack, before I check in with my team, before I let someone else tank the energy of my day. And I'm not saying everybody's a time suck or energy suck, but let's be real. It sucks your energy. When you wake up, what are the tasks that have to be done to move the needle in your business before the day gets in? For me, everything on the right hand side, this is my day right now.

Everything on the right hand side, I only give myself till 10 a. m. to get done. 9. 45, so I can go potty. I have to get those things done. If that means that I have to wake up at 6, if that means I can sleep until 7 that day because I batched a bunch of TikToks earlier in the week, great. But for now, I know that the things that I have to do in my business to move the needle, to hit the goals that I've set, are these things. And they have to get done before the day starts. Period.

End of conversation. And they get done because I only give myself until 10. I don't give myself all day long anymore, right? I'm not like, Oh, it'll get done at some point today. No, it won't. I follow up with my sales pipeline. I do my marketing. All of that is pre scheduled and ready for the day before I start my day, before I let anyone else in. Here's what I want you guys to know. Not a single person in this room wants to be average. No one wants to be average.

You don't want to be the wedding pro in your market that's like, there's Suzy over there. She has a fine business. I don't want a fine business. Yeah, I don't want a fine business. I want to be a badass. Like I want to be the one that people look up to. I want to be the one that's driving the thought leadership in my market. I want to be the one that changes the way my market works. I want to be the one that changes the way the wedding industry works. And I know that you guys are like that too.

I know you are. I've talked to so many of you. Your normal output will not produce those results. The reason there's a 1 percent is because those, to get to that 1%, you have to put in a different level of work. Your work has to be focused. It doesn't mean you work harder. It means you work smarter. Right? A focused fool is always going to be better. I don't want you to be a fool, but I do want you to be focused, right? Focus on the work that is going to move the needle in your business.

And that's what I really want you guys to think about when you're here this week, is to stop making the excuses. If you wanted to, you would. And by the way, this is a Travis Kelce reference, if anybody didn't get that. I love him. Um, okay. So if you wanted to, you would, right? If you wanted to, you would. You will find the time. You will find the energy. You will find the way to do it. Or, you can be like everybody else, and you can make the excuses. Right? We all do it.

I'm 17 years into my business, and I just made a bunch of excuses to my coach. So, don't do that. Okay? Don't give me your excuses. Tell me how you're going to make it work. So I want you to really be thinking about that over the next two days, is how can I readjust my schedule? How can I make it so that everything fits in and I am so dead focused on those goals? And I want you to make that bigger goal. a little bit.