Juggling chaos - how to combine life with your wedding business

I'm Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger, and you are listening to The Wedding Pros who are Ready to Grow podcast. I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level. If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you love, then you're in the right place.

Let's get going with today's episode. When it comes to our wedding businesses, there's one thing that's universally true for all of us, and that's that we all have the same amount of time in a week. It's 168 hours to be precise. What's more important though, is how we use the time that we've got.

So often I have conversations with you where you say to me, I can't achieve what I want to in my business right now because I've got young kids, because I'm looking after my elderly parents because I've got grandchildren three days a week because I've got massive health concerns, which are taking up loads of my time. Or because I'm juggling another full-time job alongside my business, which is just a side hustle, and I totally get it. I have lived my life as one big juggle for the last six.

So today I want to share my story with you. I wanna show you what it really looks like in my life and how I practically implement things and ideas into my business. To help me make the most of my time, I'm gonna share with you some ideas that you can implement into your life and your business too. I also wanna share with you how my. Actually looks versus Instagram. I always fall into this trap.

I think everyone understands that Instagram isn't reality, but yet so often we look at what's happening on Instagram and make assumptions about how people are living their lives. So I'm gonna peel back the curtain today on the podcast and show you how chaotic and crazy my life really is and how I've practically implement things into my business to help get that Instagram look that you maybe see. You may have heard of Parkinson's law.

It's the theory that says that a task takes however long we have to do it. So if we've got a long time to do a task, we just make that task last longer. And if we only have a short time to do a task and we've got a tight deadline, then guess what? That task takes us less time. Now, we could go into the ins and outs of why that is, and you can go away and read up about Parkinson's law. However, I think really each and every one of us know this to be.

When we've got loads of time, we waste loads of time. And whether we have a week to do something, a month to do something or a year to do something, I guarantee most of us leave it until the deadline. That is what Parkinson's law is, and that is why if we understand that we can really work out how we can be way more productive with our time and get more done in the short amount of time we have when it comes to being more effective, one of the.

People suggest is giving yourself less time to do tasks. So if you are sitting listening to this podcast, or perhaps because you're busy like me, you're doing it while in the car, on the way, somewhere else or on a run and you're multitasking, then if you are someone that doesn't have a lot of time because you're juggling. All of these other commitments, Stop seeing that as a negative.

Stop seeing that as a frustration and realize that could actually be your superpower because you are gonna be so much more effective with the small amount of time you've got. I'm gonna give you an example in my life about how this. Absolutely plays out. So a couple of episodes ago I mentioned to you one of the things I implemented into my business more recently, which has been a massive help to me, is a cleaner. It helps me so much because it saves me so much time. She's amazing.

She does a great job, and she comes once a week. Now before she comes each week, I have one hour between dropping my children off at school and her arriving, and in that hour without fail, I run round and tidy my house. I achieve more in that hour when it comes to tidying than I do with all of the other hours in my week. Now I know if I just had to tidy the house each week, it would take me forever. In fact, it'd probably take me a whole day.

But because I know I only have that short window of time and there's a massive deadline on it because she's turning up at the exact right time, then I am really effective. I can blitz and tidy my house in that hour so it looks pristine, and then she can come in and do the rest, it's an example of how I use that time more effectively because I have a short. And that will be the same for you when it comes to all of the tasks in your business.

The less time you have to do them, the more effective you will be at getting them done, without wasting time and without being distracted. So how does my life look versus Instagram? Now, if you look at my Instagram page, you might think that I spend my days sitting on my bed on my computer putting in strategy and going to glamorous events and parties. In fact, one of my friends asked me the other day, if I get paid to party for a living.

Now I understand that that is what I'm putting out online because that is. Marketing, right? Marketing is selling the dream. Now, I'm not trying to sell the fact that I've got this amazing life, not at all, because I am doing all of those things. However, there's a whole lot of other things that I'm doing on a daily basis that you don't see because, well, no one wants to see me running around on the school run or running my children back and forward to gymnastics.

It's nothing to do with my business. I wanna keep my personal life separate. And quite honestly, it's not that interesting. But that is the reality of my life. And so if you look at my Instagram, like the person did at the event, I met the other week, and just think that's all I do, then you will make assumptions about me that I have all this childcare and I have all this help, and that maybe my husband's at home all of the time doing all the house stuff so that I can run my business.

And I wanna tell you, that's absolutely not true. So how does my life really look? Well, for a start, I have very little help with childcare. In fact, out of all my friends with children of the same age, I have probably have the least amount of help with childcare. We don't have a lot of childcare at all. In fact, 95% of our childcare is either myself or. Or my husband now, we have young children.

They are six and nine, and they do now go to school full-time, which has freed up a lot of time, and I'll talk about that preschool phase for anyone that's in that right now, a little bit later in the episode, but right now they're in school all day, but we don't have any childcare help. So we are doing everything ourselves 95% of the time.

In that extra 5%, I may pay a babysitter for an evening so that we can go out together, or one of my friends might walk the children to school and I'll do the same for them the week after. So it kind of works in kind. But most of what I do, I do it myself. So I take my children to school every morning. I pick them up every afternoon. So I only have between the hours of nine o'clock and three o'clock on a daily basis to get my work done once I pick the children up from school.

My life is just completely chaotic. We're going from gymnastics to dancing, to singing lessons, to piano lessons and swimming lessons and everything in between. I'm then coming home, making them dinner, sorting their bags out for the next day, doing the schoolwork, and then getting them into bed. I. I then have some time in the evening to do some work.

However, I don't have, every evening I'm currently practicing for a Performance of Sister Act with a local drama group, and that is happening twice a week, so two evenings a week. At the moment, I am out and I'm doing that for my own fun. And leisure, so that takes away a couple of evenings. I also try not to work for my business on the weekend evenings so that I can spend some time with my husband.

So really there's only one or maybe two evenings now that I can work in the week and where possible, because the kids are in school, I try not to work any evenings at all, or only once or twice. A month, so don't be fooled. I don't have unlimited time to run my business. I really do have between nine o'clock and three o'clock to get things done and the occasional evening. I also have little to no childcare when it comes to school holidays.

So for me, I have six weeks in the summer where I basically have them at home all of the time and I have to juggle. This summer, I had them for the whole six weeks. We went away, we did things, we had fun. I had no childcare. The only childcare I had was for a couple of days when my parents took them away for a few days and we actually went away ourselves, me and my partner, and had some times to ourself and one week where I booked them.

Dance camp that they wanted to go to for a few hours a day, and so I did get some time back in my business. Most of the school holidays though, I just know that I've got them at home. So that's what my life looks like. It is one chaotic juggle with small children at home. We are going here, there and everywhere. School runs, picking them up. If a child comes home sick, they're at home with me. If it's school holidays, they're at home with me and I just make my business work around it.

Now, like I said, if you look at my Instagram, you might think that that is not how I live my life, but I want you to know this is the truth, and I'm being very open and honest with you here because I want you to understand that all of us have this chaos going on in the background. Even if it's not children that you've got, Perhaps you've got other things going on with your health. Maybe you've got another job that you're trying to do alongside setting up your.

And so you need to look at the time you do have available and look at how we can use that more effectively. And that's what I wanna talk about. Now. I'm gonna share with you some of the things that I've implemented in my life over the last six years to help me run my business, whilst also having this constant juggle of children going on in the background. So the first thing is that I set the boundaries and the boundaries shift with me over time. I'm gonna say that again.

I set the boundaries in my business and the boundaries shift with me over time because my life circumstances are always shifting. So when I gave up my job, In radio and went self-employed. One of the primary reasons was so that I could be more flexible. In fact, that's why most of us start a business.

But it's very easy early on to get sucked into ending up working more on your business than you did in your office job and being tied to doing certain things and feeling like you're working all of the time Now. , I understand starting a business and running a business is hard work and you have to put the hours in because I've done it myself and I still do. But you do have some flexibility and you can set the boundaries in your own business.

So for example, when I first started my business, I actually was pregnant, uh, with my second child. And so I then had a newborn baby when I first started, what I do now. And so I set some really strict boundaries in my business for a start. Business wasn't as big as it is now, and I did that on purpose because I knew I didn't have loads of time in my week to grow it. So I had it at the level that was sustainable for me in that period of life.

I also chose to run all of my events in evenings because I knew that's when I could get childcare. My husband had a normal nine to five job and he was home most evening. So I could have my networking events and any training and things like that that I did always happened in the evening or um, on the weekend. So that's what I did to start with, and I said it around that now. People were asking me all the time, Can I do some events in the daytime? Can I do some training in the daytime?

But I had to say no. I knew my own boundaries and I knew at that point I wasn't able to do that. So I just said it around me. Now you might be thinking, Yeah, Becca, but I'm working weddings, so I have to work all the weekends. I have to work the peak times. I totally understand what you're saying, but equally, you don't have to do anything. It's your business. You can run your business however you want to.

Yes, it might be different to how other people are doing it, but if you choose to only do five weddings a year at a premium rate because that's all you have time for, then great, go for it. You don't have to do what everyone else is doing if you decide to become the person who is the specialist of weekday weddings, so that could be your marketing message. I only work weekday weddings. I don't do weddings at weekends, but if you are getting married in the week, you'll get great value from me.

I specialize in weekday weddings. Let's chat. Okay? You can do whatever you want. We don't have to do what everyone else is doing. You just need to find something that works for you within your boundaries and within your family life, and that's gonna be different for each and every one of us. Now, as I said, this then evolved with time. So now I don't have such small children and my children are in school, and so now our boundaries have shifted again.

Whereas I used to do things around naps and around when my husband was at home. Now I've shifted my business to be much more during the day, so I do less evening events. I do more things during the day, more of my training sessions. Take place during the day, and that shift has happened because my life has shifted. I haven't particularly told people that's why it's happened.

You may only be learning this by listening to this podcast, but over time, I've shifted things so that it works in line with me. So when it comes to your business, think about the boundaries you have. Think about the size of the business you can manage right now with the time that you've got. And set yourself some boundaries and stick to them. They can shift and they can change over. Everything in life is a season.

I really believe that If it's a difficult season, sometimes we can do less, but then other seasons will open up and we'll have time to do more. And you might be right in the middle of a really difficult season right now. You might have really young children, You might have a really sick relative or family member. You may be going something. Really difficult personally, and that's okay.

And I wanna say to yourself, just be kind to yourself and look at what you can actually manage, but also don't use it as an excuse. If you can't manage as much, that's fine. Be kind to yourself and set those boundaries. There will be a season when you have more time and you can grow back into your business again. Okay. The second tip I have for you is that where possible, in my business, I automate. I automate as much as I possibly can because I'm short of time.

Automation is not as scary as it sounds, and there are little things you can automate in your business to save yourself time. So things like setting up a scheduler or setting up a calendar so that people can just come in and book an appointment straight away, rather than having to go backwards and forwards A lot of times.

Email, setting up payment pages on your website using something like QuickBooks, where it's really quick and easy to send your invoices automatically sending people emails when they buy from you. Having templates saved so when people ask for something, you've got it to hand. Having really simple. Email folders and systems where all of your contracts and things are held, so it's quick and easy for people to find what they need. I automate and simplify as much as I possibly can.

Now, not everything can be automated, but a lot of things can be. So look at the tasks that you're doing all of the time and save yourself those extra minutes by looking at how you can automate. If you automate something once, yes, it takes you time to get it set up, but then you can use it time and time and time again without having to put the effort and the hours in. And when you're short of time like I am, then all of the automation is really, really helpful.

Okay. The third thing that I use in my business is that I'm only available when I'm available. And I'm okay with that. So many conversations I have with people are around when they're gonna fit in their client meetings because they're so busy and it's because they're letting their customers decide when they want to meet. However, in my business, I don't let people make the decisions. I make the decisions for you. Now again, I just talked about automation and calendars.

So if you wanna book in with me to do a podcast recording or to have a discovery call or a one-to-one. I have a calendar set up, but that calendar availability is all built around my life. So you can't meet with me at eight 30 in the morning because I'm taking my children to school. You can't meet with me at four o'clock on a Wednesday because I'll probably be at my daughter's singing lesson. So you can.

Only book times when I'm available, so I will put into my calendar times between nine o'clock and three o'clock, and then I will put in the occasional evening slot when I know I'm available for people that struggle to meet during the day. But I set the times that are working for me. Now people don't look at my calendar and think, Wow, she's really stingy with her times. She can only meet me between nine and three. She must be doing something else. She's really unprofessional.

Okay. That's not true. People don't look at it like that. People look at a diary and they just pick the time that's most convenient to them from the times that I have given them. And this is the same for you and your business. Don't ask people when they wanna meet you and then have to run around juggling everything to make it work. Tell them when you are available. Look at your own life.

Work out when you have spaces in your diary and either set up a calendar or send them the times that you have. When we ring up to book a dentist appointment, they don't say on the other end of the phone. Great. When are you free? Do you wanna come? And I say, Yeah, nine o'clock on Friday night. That's not how it works. We don't expect that. We ask what availability they have, and then we choose the appointment that works best for us. It's exactly the same in business.

So make sure you are telling people when you're available and you're only available when you're available. Okay. The next thing that I do in my household is try as much as possible to plan things ahead of time. We need to make sure my business and my husband's work and the children's schedule all fits together well. And when we don't communicate that well, that's when it all starts to fall apart. So we try and sit down together, either at the beginning of the month or a beginning of a week.

As much as possible and talk through as a couple what we've got coming up and how we're gonna manage it, how we're gonna make these things work, and who's gonna be doing what. Sometimes we have to write it all down on a piece of paper to make sure it all fits. So for example, if I'm going away to speak at a conference, perhaps we need to sit down and work out. Whether my husband can leave work early to pick the children up and what days he could work the extra hours to make it up.

It's practical, simple stuff, but by talking and working together, we can solve problems much easier. If you think ahead and plan ahead and look at what's coming up rather than just working in the moment, it will make your life so much better Now. That really is how my life works. It is a massive juggle. The children have to be in all sorts of different places at all sorts of different times in all sorts of the right uniforms and shoes, and make sure they've got the right equipment with them.

And so we just write it all down on a piece of paper. So that we remember what we're doing, because otherwise it will all fall apart. So between us, between me and my partner, we get them to all the places they should be with the right things. Not because we are superhuman, but because we write it down and we plan it out, and we talk about it. I know it sounds simple, but maybe that's something you need to start doing at the beginning of a week or beginning of a month.

Sit down with the other people in your house and just talk about how you're gonna make this work between you. Who's gonna be cooking the dinner that night? How are you gonna make it? Is there someone else in the household that can help you in certain areas to free up some time for you? Okay. My next tip for you is that I am transparent about my situation as much as I possibly can be because that helps me and helps my clients and people understand what I'm all about. Now, let me explain.

What I mean by that is I don't pretend to be something I'm not. Now, obviously this hasn't worked for me as well as I thought it was because people still think that I must have all this super help behind the scenes, which I absolutely don't, and that's one of the reasons I'm doing this episode for full transparency to show you that it is possible to run a business and have an absolutely crazy, chaotic life.

In the background, but I think it's helpful for me to be transparent and open with the people that I'm working with and not try and pretend to be something I'm not. Often, when we are running a business, we try and allude some kind of super humanness to our clients, to our couples, to the people that we are working with, as if we've got it all together. And I understand why we wanna do that because we wanna come across professional and that's really important.

But sometimes it's actually more relatable for people. When we are honest with them, we don't need to hide the fact that we've got children. We don't need to hide the fact that we've got another job. We don't need to hide all these, these things. Yes, we might not wanna shout about them, but we can also be honest and transparent. When we start telling lies or covering things up, we start to get ourselves in a big pickle.

If, for example, I'm recording a podcast with someone and they say to me right at the beginning of the call, just to let you know I've got a baby in the next room, or I've got a dog next door that might start barking. Please let me know if you hear anything, and I'll go and sort it out. I would much prefer that for them than them to be pretending that everything in their house is silent and then looking really shifty and trying to work out what to do when something goes.

Be upfront and be honest. Now, I had a situation, just today where I decided transparency was absolutely the best answer. I had this nightmare scenario whereby I had a video call with my members at 10 o'clock in the morning for an hour, and it was an interview with a guest, uh, coming in and talking to them. About branding. Now, during that time, I also knew I had a plumber that was gonna be turning up and I didn't exactly know what time they were going to be coming.

Now, I could have pretended that that wasn't happening and hoped that I could remain professional, and hopefully no one would notice that that was going on. But I knew that my stress levels would be absolutely raised and my life is a little bit chaotic sometimes. So I decided transparency was the answer and. I just owned it. I said at the beginning of the call just to let everyone know, unfortunately, I've got a plumber coming to my house. I don't know when they're coming.

They're gonna come as part of this call. So if I suddenly have to disappear and leave you with the guest for a moment without me, that's where I am. And that definitely was the right thing to do. What happened was I went on, I went live, the guest came in, I handed over to him, and then the plumber knocked on the door. So the timing was perfect, but then I came back and just explained to everyone, yeah, the plumber's here now, so I might have to disappear again, but I am paying attention.

Now you may listen to that and think, Well, that's a bit unprofessional. But in that moment, it was much better for me to be open and honest with my audience about what was happening than trying to pretend that I was something I'm not. And you know what? That's really relatable because they're all sat there listening to the training as well. Maybe you were there too, and you've probably got other things going on in your life as well.

Maybe you've got the doorbell going off, an Amazon parcel being delivered, you've gotta go and get. Dog from the vet all whilst trying to listen to the cool, and people relate to it. They don't wanna work with me because I'm superhuman. I guess they wanna work with me because I'm just me. And that's the same with your couples. If you can be relatable to them, if you can find common ground, if you can get on with them, sometimes being transparent about your circumstances goes a really long way.

Yes, maybe you might lose a couple of people for not being as super professional or mentioning that you've got children. However, for me, those are the clients that I don't wanna work with anyway because ultimately if they're that funny about it, then they're probably not my kind of person. Okay, next up is that I'm selective with what I say yes to, and I've learnt to say, no, I get it. Saying no is one of the hardest things, especially when big opportunities come around.

But sometimes we gotta be realistic. If you know that your editing time is short and you can only manage one wedding in a weekend, take the one wedding in the weekend and then don't take another one. You'll live and learn that it's best to say no, rather than stretching yourself into time you don't have. This is when setting those boundaries is really important.

If you know you can't do something because it's your child's birthday or you've gotta look after your mum, or you've got a health need that's gonna take priority, then sometimes you've just gotta say no to opportunities and that's okay. Or maybe it's a not.

I got invited to speak at an event this weekend, but it's my son's birthday and so I turned it down because for me that's a hard no. I'd much rather turn down the opportunity and spend the time with my child on their birthday, and I was honest about the reason why I said no, and they were totally fine with it. And I said, If you do another event and it's in a different day, or the date changes, get back in touch and let's work together. And they said, Yeah, we'll absolutely do that.

So you've gotta be selective and you've gotta say no. The other thing I say no to now. Things that waste my time ultimately. So I won't just have loads of coffees with random people or jump on calls with people unless I understand why that is, what the objective is and what I'm gonna get out of that time. I don't have the time to have loads of pointless conversations if I'm quite brutally honest. I have to be really careful and precious about my time because I have so.

It. I will jump on calls with people. I will have meetings with people, but I have to understand why and whether or not it's worth giving up some of that precious time in order to have that meeting. So if you are someone that has very little time, don't waste your time. Think strategically about what conversations you have, what projects you say yes to, and what projects you say no to.

Why you are saying yes and why you are saying no. How does that fit in with your schedule and can you manage it? It's okay to say no. Sometimes it's okay to say not right now sometimes, and if you can get. Better at that, you will use your time much more effectively. And again, I'm really open and honest about that. I will tell people I'd love to meet for a coffee, but I'm very short of time. However, is it something we can sort out over email? Could we do something on Zoom?

I've got 15 minutes on Zoom and I'm really strict with that. And just be really careful about how much of your time you give away to other people. The next tip I have for you is to outsource where possible. This is something that I've got better and better at over the years because I've realized my time is finite, right? I don't have loads of it, and I'm gonna run out of it if I try and do all of the things all of the time.

So if I wanna grow my business and develop my offerings, then I'm gonna have to do something about that, and I've had to outsource. I found this really hard in the first instance because ultimately I know that I can do all of the tasks I outsource myself. I may think that I can do them better, although I've been proved wrong over time and realized other people can do things better than me.

But we are very protective about our own businesses and we feel like we have to do all of the things, and we're also very reluctant to pay someone else to do something that we know that we can. However I've learned sometimes in life, you've got to speculate to accumulate. There are some tasks in your business that someone else could do for you.

There are some tasks in your business that you have to do yourself, and if you can do more of the tasks you have to do yourself, which leads to more sales in your business, and in the meantime, outsource some of those smaller, less important tasks to someone else, you'll end up making the money that you are spending on outsourcing.

And I'm always looking at things I can outsource in my business now, things that take a lot of time that maybe I could be doing something else with that time, instead either spending it with my family or using it to build my business and grow and make some money or change my offerings or whatever it is. For you, outsourcing is one of the best things that I've done, and it's something I highly recommend.

If you feel like you're really stretched for time, have a look at who else in your life could take some of those tasks off of you. Perhaps you've got someone in your family, a niece, a nephew, a cousin, a teenage child who's looking to earn a little bit of extra pocket money and could do some of your basic tasks for you. You're helping them out because they're gonna get some extra money, and it's massively helping you out because it's saving you.

Outsourcing doesn't have to be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds. It could be 20, 30, 40 pounds a week for someone to just take a little bit of work away from you, freeing you up to have more time to do the things you want to be doing. Have a think about everything you do in your business. Take note of what's taking loads of time, and think about what somebody else could be doing.

Okay. My final tip for you today is that I write a lot of lists and I prioritize when I feel overwhelmed with the amount of work that I've got going on or all of the things in my head. I write everything down and then I look to prioritize it. Sometimes we've got things on our to-do list, which actually aren't essential and are just wasting time. Are there things in your business that you could stop doing entirely? Either outsource.

Actually, they're just pointless and you don't need to be doing them anymore, and you can erase them from your list. Are there things that you could be doing more effectively or are there things that you could start doing which would actually be better uses of your time than the things you're doing at the moment? Have a look at which of the tasks you write down will move the needle of your business. Forward, what things will have a big impact on your business?

What things will bring in money into your business? What things will grow your business? What things will grow your network, and what things are you just procrastinating over and using a lot of time on unnecessarily? We get that shiny object syndrome, don't we, where we see everyone's doing Instagram reels. So we spend loads and loads of loads of time doing Instagram reels and it wastes loads of our time. And yes, it might help.

But also maybe your time could have been more effective by spending that same amount of time, meeting with a venue coordinator about getting on their recommended suppliers list, or being part of a style sheet where you're gonna get loads and loads of photos that you can use on your marketing for the next year. Think about the tasks you're doing. Think about which ones you don't need to be doing and which ones are the priority.

Then when I get down to what I need to do on a daily basis, if I've got a lot to do, I write everything down on a piece of paper, and then I go back through that list and start prioritizing it, and I give everything a number. 1, 2, 3, 4. Number one is the task I do first. And so on. I put my phone on airplane mode. I turn off the distractions, and I just start going through that list one by one by one in the order that I've set.

Nothing else can take priority because I've already chosen the priority order. And when I do that, I get so much more done in a day. Why? Because I've given myself less time to do it, and I've decided what I'm gonna do when, and I tick loads off, and I feel so much better. So if you are feeling overwhelmed and you've got loads of tasks on a list, I highly recommend. Out of your head onto paper, choose which ones need to be done today and then prioritize. I hope you found today's episode helpful.

I hope it's helpful for you to understand a bit of my story and how I run my business. I don't want you to look at me and think I've got it all together. I really don't. My life is total chaos behind the scenes. Like I said, I'm in this season of life where I'm running my children backwards and forwards here, there and everywhere all of the time whilst trying to run my business and be in a show at the same time and have date nights with my husband.

But I do make it work because of all of these things that I've shared with you. Whenever I'm vulnerable like this, I love to get feedback from you. Obviously I'm talking to the ether and I never really know who's listening, so if something in this episode has resonated with you today, I would absolutely love it. If you could reach out to me, drop me a message on Instagram and let me know if there's something in here that's been helpful to you to help you move forward.

I understand how overwhelming it can be to be a business owner. I'm right there with you myself, but you absolutely can do it, and you've just got to prioritise, set those boundaries and make it work for you. I'll see you next time.