To run your business on a daily basis, what serv“I’m great at what I do—paring my clients with vendors that can bring forth the vision and experience my clients want. I’m also great at realizing what I don’t like to do or have time to do. I subcontract bookkeeping/income and spending reports. Although, I pay the bills. I have a design team I use for my website and press, and I use an editor to read through my press/script and information going out. I like to have interns (high school/college age) do the grunt work of social media, like setting up accounts and sorting through photos. I do my own posting to ensure it’s done right.”- JoAnn Moore, CWC, MWP™, CGWP, CSS, JoAnn Moore Weddings, Vail, Colo. “As soon as I was able, I began outsourcing myaccounting. I’ve never been particularly strong in math, and I found that I was spending far too much time doing something that a professional could do in an hour. This freed up my time considerably, and I was able to reallocate it to business development.” - Meghan Ely, OFD Consulting, Richmond, Va. “One crucial thing I outsource is décor details—I’m talking about special details that add personal touches. Sources like Etsy are an amazing place to add handcrafted touches that make the wedding different and special without driving the client (or planner) into a DIY frenzy when their attention can be spent elsewhere.”- Tanya Costigan, Tanya Costigan Events,
Westfield, Mass. “We outsource our bookkeeper, accountant, IT, and website/collateral design. These are specialized skill sets that none in my office have. My staff members are great project managers. My efforts are focused on sales, marketing, and design; those are my core competencies. We prefer to get it right the first time by outsourcing these vitally important tasks to professionals so that we can concentrate our efforts on what we know best, event production.”- Merryl Brown, President, MA, CWP™, Merryl Brown Events, Montecito, Calif. “Being a business owner and a mom, I wear many hats and things can get pretty crazy, so I’ve recently hired a virtual assistant to take care of my administrative work. It really helps balance things out, and now I can concentrate on what I love—planning events.” - Monique Hogan, MBA, Monique Hogan Weddings and Special Events, Los Angeles “We recently started using HoneyBook and are very pleased with it. It helps us send out proposals and allows our clients to sign and pay electronically. We use AllSeated for our venue maps; it is easy to use. We use Eventbrite for a lot of our nonprofit events and even our vendor lunches. We use QuickBooks, which has really helped us to see where the business is at and where it is going financially.”- Colleen Bauer, Fairy Godmother—a Wedding and Event Company, Bakersfield, Calif. “I have always had an external accountant do my taxes—that is a specialist skill set. I would be doing myself and my business a disservice to do it myself. I have always hired an external branding expert, web designer, and printers, as that is also too important, I think, to DIY. How can we expect our couples to hire pros when we aren’t even doing that for our own businesses?”- Bethel Nathan, Ceremonies by Bethel and Elevate by Bethel, San Diego “Services that I hire out are based on their expertise and professionalism in the following areas: Accounting—based on financial guidance; social media/Internet marketing—time-consuming and allows me to take care of new businesses; marketing assistance—view wedding sites, resorts, and villas; interview local vendors and the opportunity to see their work. [That we know the quality of wedding businesses' work] is quite essential for our brides who depend solely on us.” - Coleen “Kim” Morrison, Unique Weddings and Tours, Brooklyn, N.Y. “Running the most popular officiant company in southern California doesn’t leave me much time for a life. I have to parse out pieces of my business, not just for my sanity but also to make sure an expert is handling it. I have a CPA do all of my accounting and payroll. I don’t want to see it except for the two times we meet every year. I also use Ring Central as my phone service, since its multi-functional service platform has enabled me to streamline my calls, texting, and virtual meetings. I utilize a cloud-based enterprise server for my calendar and email. I have customized it so it works almost flawlessly.”- Alan Katz, Great Officiants, San Diego