MUIYB Falling In Love with Your Business w Krystel Stacey

Um, and yeah, I'd love to explore, and I'd also love to like give tips wherever I can. I feel like a good— like, I like whatever I can do to help listeners and help people out there. My whole purpose in life is to inspire to action, like what can we do to make, make you move and make something happen. And so hopefully—

so why, why is that— we're already rolling, so why is that so compelling?

Because I feel like there's so many people out there that have good motivation, motivational speakers and people who are talking. There's a lot of people talking, but who's actually taking something away and doing something with it? And that's what I feel like is the biggest point of it, right? Like you have to start taking things to action. You have to start moving to action. What are you going to do after this? How are you going to make things different than they were before? What does that look like? Yeah.

Why don't people move to action, in your opinion?

Why don't people move to action?

Action? Yeah. You've been to those events, right? Those motivational events with whoever kind of flailing their arms around, everyone's all jacked up and then nothing happens.

Yes, exactly. And I feel like it's because number one, they don't, they don't provide like, okay, this is exactly what you need to do step by step. And people get overwhelmed easily. And they're complacent. And they're like, well, I don't know. So I'm just not going to do anything. Yeah, I also think they get on a— whenever you go to one of those events, you kind of get on a high. And after you get home, you step back into the daily whirlwind, and then it's over. Because you just are reacting instead of being proactive about your life. And so I think that that's where it's kind of based.

I've seen— which events have you gone to recently? Like the most recently? Yeah, not me, not recently.

But I've been to Engage summits.

Oh, did you go to the one in the Bahamas?

I went to the one, the last one I went to was in Mexico.

Okay. They go all over the place.

They go all over the place. But I love them. And there are, I mean, and it's what you do with it, right? Like there are a lot of motivational conferences and events, but it's what you do with it and what you take away that is going to make the difference.

So, so I went to, I went to Engage. I went to the one in the Bahamas. Yeah, I was keynoting there. I was speaking.

Amazing. Oh, awesome.

But to your point, Christelle, like People getting all excited. Um, the, the fanfare— I mean, I'll tell you, Engage puts on a great conference. There's like basically fireworks going on.

It's beautiful, beautiful, right?

Yeah, yeah, because it's all wedding planners and, and people that support wedding planners, right? So you have flowers, whatever.

I was—

it was breathtaking. Yeah, we're all excited. Then they're, they're kind of boosting you up at night, right? So people are drinking like, this is amazing, and there's, there's this like this rave party.

Yeah.

And then within a week or two, people are back to the regular grind of their business. What the eff?

Yeah, what is that? What is that?

What is that?

Yeah, let's do something. Let's change. Let's change your life here. Let's not— it's not, you know, and some people go for the party for that conference. And I'm sure many other conferences, people are there just to enjoy themselves. But for me, I'm like, what am I gonna get out of it? What am I gonna take home? How How am I going to make changes? How can I help other people make changes in their life and their business? You know, I want to help. My goal right now is to help women entrepreneurs design a life and a business that they love, that they really like deeply, truly love. Not just that they like, but that they are so excited about getting up every day. And so yeah, so that's where I come from and that's my stance. And like, I'm like, let's do something different here. Come on.

Do you love your business?

I love my business. I love it.

Tell me about it. It's wedding planning, obviously.

So I've been doing wedding planning for the last 12 years. Yeah. And I started it obviously for the love of love, not to make money. I, um, it's not, not a business where you make a lot of money. And, um, and so yeah, so I started it there and I felt like I— it started out of passion, but soon after I realized like I can't keep this alive only on passion and it has to become a business. And once I realized that, it changed everything. And it was like, okay, now it has to be both things. I had a business coach and he's like, well, if you're not, if it's not producing profit and it's not making money, that's called a hobby. It's like, oh, that's killer, you know?

Was that the knife to the chest?

Dagger to the heart. Yes, knife to the chest, dagger to the heart. It was hard. But I think that I loved it so much, I just had to do it. And so figuring out the way in which I can do it best is what I took off from there. And I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur. So I started Couture Events, and got that up and running. And I have a team now up the coast of San Diego, Orange County, LA, San Francisco.

Yeah.

And my girls run a lot of the events now, which is great. And then I, yeah, and I'm able to focus. I have a conference, my own little small women's entrepreneur conference.

Oh, no way.

That's cool. A confetti conference. Yeah. And so I have that. And I've actually met Danielle Mulvey through, she came and spoke at our little conference and that's been really fun.

Oh, that's cool. Did you know she started a podcast, Profit First Nation?

Yes, I just recently saw that and I'm so excited.

Yeah, she's awesome.

Yeah.

So, alright, so Couture Events, is it exclusively weddings or do you do other events also?

We do other events as well. We do other corporate events and lifestyle events. But mostly weddings is our like our main bread and butter.

And how are you being affected during COVID Oh, everything's on pause.

Everything has been postponed, pushed back. Thankfully we haven't had anyone cancel, but we've had some brides that have pushed to like, okay, it's now next year, same time. Or we've had some that are trying to go for like August and fall, so we'll see how that goes.

All right, so, but this is a dilemma now because if, if some brides are pushing off till 2021 and you already have people that were planning on 2021, you're gonna have a surge of demand but you're only one couture. So what do you do?

Right. So for us, we've like pretty much considered this year, which is really sad, kind of a wash. Um, and then next year, yeah, the problem is, is that our, our strong dates are being taken by people that booked this year.

Yeah.

So, and now we have to push back to next year. So now we have less spots available. Um, we already are at a point where we charge a pretty high premium. Okay. And so we decided like, we're just going to leave it where it's at and whatever we can book, we're going to book.

Okay, but yeah, I think that's what wedding planners could do is charge more and say, listen, those are premium dates now because everyone wants those dates.

Exactly.

But you didn't change your pricing?

You could charge more. Yeah, no, I didn't change my pricing. Our prices start at $10K, um, like a surprise and delight package, and then $20K for full coordination and design, and then $32K for, um, full coordination design and above and beyond, like what else, all the extras, all the lovely extras.

I love that you have 3 pricing options.

Yes, we have 3 pricing options, and it took a long time to get there though, right? Like when you first start, you'll do anything for anything, and that's true, right? Yeah. And then you start to realize like, this isn't sustainable, and what else can we do? And so, but after you decide like, hey, this— I'm worth it, and this is where I'm at, I've been doing this for 10 years, we're gonna up it, we're gonna charge what we're worth. And, um, for the time, once I did the the math backwards, I was like, I'm making less than a Starbucks barista. How can I survive? I can't.

Tell me more about that. So how do you do the math backwards?

So I looked at how much time I put into planning a wedding. What are all the things that I'm doing behind the scenes? Not just day of, day of is one thing, but behind the scenes, I spend a year planning this person's wedding and designing it and making it beautiful. And I was really only charging for the day. And so once I took that time, and then realized like, okay, it's also like the expenses of the event planning. Or like at the time I had overhead, I had an office downtown San Diego. So taking out those expenses and kind of adding it all up, it was like, wow, I am, I'm making less than a Starbucks barista would. And so that was definitely a hard realization.

It sounds like you've had a few ahas. So you had the coach saying you're in a hobby, not a business. That's a slap to the face. And you get the, you're making less than a, barista. So, but if you're making less than a barista, that means you had to increase your prices substantially.

Yes.

All right, so that must have been—

I did it in small increments. So when I first figured that out, it was like, okay, well, how much do I think I could charge that clients would still pay? Because we mostly work word of mouth. We do some marketing and some advertising, but we found that for higher-end luxury events, it's mostly word of mouth. People want to know that they can trust the person that's planning their events. And so once, once we figured that out, I was like, okay, let's push the envelope. And then after we booked a few of those, then we pushed the envelope again. And now I feel like we're at a place where we've kind of like topped out, at least for now, especially for my team members and for my girls. And, and so it's a good place for us to be.

How do your customers respond to higher prices? I mean, they may not know the prior prices, but the caliber of customers that change, like what What's the experience like with pricing in regards to the customer's perspective?

Yeah, so we were previously, we were doing 40 weddings a year.

Okay, and it's a lot.

That's a lot. And so we took it down to like 10 to 12 weddings a year, and we're still making more than we were previously. Um, okay, we didn't have to get as many clients as we did before. Before, it was like we wanted to book every single wedding that came to us, and now it's like, well, if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for us, and that's fine. Like, we're happy to move forward and move on because we are finding those clients that it works for for them and we can really personalize it and spend more time with them and pay more attention to them, give them really the experience that we want to provide without having to compromise on anything because we're trying to take on too much.

Do you find the customers that pay, you know, now you have 12 customers a year paying you a premium, are they better customers, so to speak, or clients?

Yes, definitely.

Why is that?

Well, here's the deal. Anytime that I've given an inch, you're like, I'm gonna give them a discount or I'm gonna help them in some way or I'm gonna lower my price. That's the time that they eat you alive. Why?

I hear over and over, Christelle, tell me the answer.

Yeah, because I think that they value, they value it so much less, right? It's perceived value, I think, in a lot of times. And so if you're asking for a premium, they think you must be really good at your job, you know what you're doing. And when you're like, when you take off a little bit here and a little bit there and you discount it for them and you bend over backwards for them, they're like, oh, keep bending, keep bending, what else can we do? And that's where it gets— you get into trouble.

You ever see that show Bridezilla? You probably have, right? Or parts of it. So my wife and I would watch that stuff. And it was just— some of these people were horrible people. Would you say, are those the lower paying people? Or is it the Bridezilla appear everywhere?

I would say we used to get more of that. And now I can notice red flags from the beginning from our first red flag.

Give me a red flag. Give me some juice here.

A red flag is when If the groom is talking over the bride, the mother of the groom is talking over the bride, the mother of the bride is speaking and speaking very loudly, when there's too many people talking in one room and they're not all on the same page, we're gonna have an issue right off the bat. Another thing is if they continually ask like, okay, well, can you get it for us for less? How much, you know, what I just said, if they're constantly asking you to bend over in that first initial meeting, Yeah, then that tells me, okay, I'm out. Like, this isn't going to work for us. Um, and so I think that it's, it's all now based on, well, I, I've had 12 years of this, and so I know what to, what to look for. But those are some of the red flags.

So what do you do when there's a red flag? Mom, you know, mother-in-law is like barking out commands.

Yeah. Uh, we slowly back away.

First of all, we don't physically— you just did it from—

no, not physically.

That'd be so awesome.

Yeah, but pretty much. So yeah, we don't like that follow-up email doesn't come for like a week, you know, we just kind of like back off a little bit and we don't push the issue and we don't say like, hey, here's this, here's the contract. We just kind of wait it out a little bit and maybe they're going to find someone else that meets all the criteria that they want and then that's a better fit for them anyway. So I would rather have it go that way. We have had a few where they're like, I'm still ready to move forward. I, you know, I'm ready to go and we just have to say, I'm so sorry, I don't feel like this is a good fit for us.

Oh, you've called— what happens when you say that to a—

Well, they get frustrated, of course. Like, what do you mean? How is it not a good fit for you? And I just say, well, you know, right now, um, and sometimes if we wait long enough, we actually do book the date. And so we'll book that date and we worry about it. And so then it's like, we're booked, you know? So just depending on what we can do, um, to kind of just let them, let them go on their way and find someone else that they're going to be happier with. That's great.

Yeah, that's totally smart.

Yeah.

Yeah. Have you had the flip side, like where someone right out of the gate, you're like, this is a freaking awesome client? How do you identify them? How do you know that they're awesome?

Yes, we have clients who, if they, if they're going to trust us completely, and they're going to say, hey, you know, I want you, I just want you to take care of it. And I trust that you got this. Those are the people that we want to work with. And those are the people that it feels the best. And it's interesting because in conversations with others that I'm hiring for my business, if I'm hiring for a certain service, um, I try to do my best to say like, I want you to use your creative expertise. If I've seen their work and I love it, like I want them to take it and run with it. I don't want to micromanage and tell them exactly what I want them to do. I say, yeah, do it and go with it. And that's what I'm looking for in our clients. I want them to, to be able to say like, this is what I'm looking for, but run with it, go for it. And that feels really good. And like, okay, they trust me to do this.

Gotcha.

And that's a good sign.

Gotcha. And have you ever had someone though, totally abdicate to saying, listen, just run with everything, I don't care. And then they're frustrated because it wasn't their vision.

We haven't had that yet.

Okay.

Along the process, I think that I realized like, you have to show them a little bit as you go. And so I showed, do you love this? Is this something that you want? Yes, yes. And they are the one that's signing the contracts with the vendors. And actually like, you know, putting their name on the dotted line. And so they know what's going on, but I'm able to present it in a really fun way. And then usually they say yes. That's awesome.

What's the biggest job you ever did, if you don't mind sharing?

Oh yeah, I did the CEO of the Chargers. What?

That's awesome. That sounds like a wealthy person.

Yeah. So we did the Spanos wedding. We've also done Taylor Guitars.

Oh yeah, I know them. Yeah, yeah.

So both daughters, we did both of their weddings, which was really fun.

Oh, that's super cool.

Yeah, and we're currently working on a Bachelor wedding, Hannah and Dylan.

Bachelor, like the show The Bachelor?

The show The Bachelor.

No. Yeah, so the wedding, like for the TV show itself, or you're—

or just, just for the couple. So they were like, they didn't, um, they were on two separate seasons and then they met up on Bachelor in Paradise. And so, and then I met him at a at a bridal show of all things, and he was supposed to be, you know, talking to the grooms in the groom's lounge area, and there was no groups that were going to leave their fiancée and go over there and chat with him. So I was like, I'm just going to go over and sit down and chat. And so we started chatting and talking about events, and I said, if you guys need a wedding planner, and he's like, well, we do. I said, well, perfect, let's talk about that. So it's been pretty awesome.

That's wild. Where are you based out of?

San Diego, California.

Oh my God, the nicest place. I've got family out in Coronado.

Oh, that's where I live.

Oh, on Orange?

Yeah, I'm on Orange.

Oh, so funny. So you're near Hotel Del or—

I'm on the other— so when you first come off the bridge, I'm on that side of the island. I mean, first come on to the, um, yeah, off the bridge onto the island.

They're off of 8th and Orange. So I go down 8th a little bit. So a lot of people don't know this, like, so that's the home of the Navy SEALs, like where you live. So I, I, uh, this is 10 years ago. I decided to go for a run, uh, and was kind of feeling my oats. And I'm running down, like, you know, you can run along, um, there's like golf course, but then you can go out toward the water. So you're seeing San Diego on the other side.

Yes.

So I'm running on a sidewalk and, you know, I'm like, I'm gonna take my shirt off. I'm really feeling myself. And there's this group of women, there's this group of women coming, and I, I saw them in the distance. I'm like kind of strutting And the one woman's like, jaw drops. I'm like, oh my God, Michael, you have it. You still got it, right? As other woman, you could see his stunned look. And I'm like, I've got it. As I say this to my head, I hear it behind my ear. I turn around, there's 10 Navy SEALs, all shirtless, and they run by me. I go spinning like a, like a washing machine, out of control, fall down. Oh, we're not looking at me. I was coming by going, ooh, ooh, and all the, every woman and man, jaws dropped. Like these guys are Greek gods warriors.

Right. Yes, they are.

It was the most humbling experience. I've never taken my shirt off again, ever. I didn't even go, like never. This one shirt I've been wearing this for 15 fucking years.

Oh, come on. Oh, come on. Oh gosh. Yeah, the seals are pretty intense here and they kind of do, yeah. They're out on the beach every day. They kind of run the island.

Yeah, sometimes they come out. I was once at Hotel Del sitting looking at the Pacific Ocean. And all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, because you have a lot of wildlife there. You have seals, like real, actual— I'm like, oh, there's a seal, a seal seal coming out of the water. I'm like, that seal looks like a human being. And all of a sudden, there's this guy running out of the water down the beach. Maybe seal.

What is happening?

What is happening? Okay, so you're in San Diego. Does that mean you have an advantage to more preeminent weddings than if I was located in the Midwest or something like that?

We definitely have a destination here, and so a lot of people come here for destination weddings, and then we also have a lot of people who live here who also want to get married here, right? They're not gonna go elsewhere. This is a pretty great destination. So we do have a lot of weddings happening here that I think aren't happening elsewhere. And because we're already located here, our teams are here, our girls are here, we don't have to pay— they don't pay a travel fee to get us here.

And do you— are all your weddings in San Diego proper? Do you go like La Jolla? I don't know the area that well, but like—

no, yeah, so we, we have San Diego, Orange County, LA, and San Francisco. We have girls in each city. I have— oh, so I have coordinators in each city. And then we have interns every year, and then we also have our previous interns which we hire back for big weddings and events.

How many people do you have, Christelle?

So I have 5 coordinators, um, but they're each independent contractors. They also own their own businesses. Um, and then I have— yeah, and then the teams, I probably have like 100 girls on call. We just have a Facebook, um, a Facebook group, and anytime we have a wedding coming up, I can say like, hey girls, I have a wedding on this date, anyone interested in working?

So smart. So you pull from your pool Yep. Okay, so you said, you say, we have a wedding on this date in this location, need you for 2 days.

Yep.

Oh, that's so great. Is it all good? You said girls, is it all girls or any guys that do this?

Girls, all girls.

And tell me about how you got started. I mean, it couldn't have started at this size. It was just you, I presume?

Yeah, no, I started, I started with a friend. So I was, I was in college. And I was working at FIDM, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, as their head event planner. So I was in college, but I was also working at a college for students, and I was helping them with their events. And my friend was like, hey, will you plan my wedding? I was like, oh, that's interesting. I, you know, I haven't done that. And I had started a little event, a little event planning business in college. It was a princess party business. So we would dress up like princesses and show up at like little kids' birthday parties. Oh, cool.

Yeah. Okay, gotcha. I did that too, by the way. I've been—

Oh, really? Really?

Yeah, I was a princess. Yeah, it was very awkward.

I never got invited to a single party, but We actually hired guys and they became the pirates. And so we had pirates and princesses.

And so that's kind of cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Business in college. And so then my friend asked me to plan her wedding and I was like, that's really interesting. I started planning it and fell in love with all the details and had a blast doing it. And so I was like, okay, maybe this is something I'd be interested in. I started putting it out there to friends and family. That first year I had 4 weddings and the 4 weddings went well. And I was like, okay, this is really cool. And I was still working at FIDM, the Fashion Institute. And then after that first year, word of mouth started to travel. And the next year I had 40 weddings.

My gosh.

Went from 4 to 40 that second year.

By yourself?

Whoa, by myself. And so I had to figure out what to do. And that was when I had the moment where I called my mom and I was like, Mom, I have 40 weddings on the books. I'm going to get an office in downtown San Diego and I'm going to leave my corporate job. And she's like, what are you doing? Don't do it. Don't do it. Stay where you are. It's safe. It's safe there. And I just said, I can't do it anymore. I want to follow my passion. I want to pursue this. And so I ended up quitting actually like 2 days later and got my little downtown spot and started, started doing weddings full time. And then I realized I need help after 2 years of doing it by myself and just having girls help me. I was like, I can't do this anymore. I need to have other coordinators outside of me. And so then started hiring girls to be coordinators and yeah, it's been a fun journey.

Have you won your mom over? She's like, that was a great idea now.

Or yeah, yeah. Now she's on board. She gets it. And, um, I think, yeah, we're different. She's very, um, she plays everything very safe. My dad is entrepreneur, um, very risky, and so I lean more towards that side. And so she sometimes, like, she has to keep us grounded, you know.

Why do you think your mom and dad are that way? Like, that sounds— there are polar opposites. Does that, does that work for each other?

Um, well, they're divorced now, so maybe apparently it doesn't work so well. It didn't work so well, but, um, it works in the sense of I think that she, like, helped and she helps me realize, she helps me walk through and plays devil's advocate with me. Like, how is this going to work if you don't make it? How are you going to make this money back? So I had the event planning company and then I decided I want to open a bridal boutique retail store. Dumb idea. But I thought that would be a great idea. Anyway, I had to take out a small business loan and she was the one in the background like, I don't think this is a good idea. I don't think this is a good idea. How are you going to make up the money? If this doesn't work out, what are you going to do?

Oh, interesting.

So she makes you have a backup plan.

Good sounding board. Yeah.

And yeah, and which is awesome. And so I really appreciate that and that she, um, yeah, she keeps me grounded.

Tell me about the Bridal Boutique. What inspired that? And are you shaking your head?

Oh boy. So I've always loved fashion. I've always— and I love bridal, so it seemed like the perfect combination. Totally. Um, it was 2015 and I decided I'm opening this this bridal boutique, once again, downtown San Diego, and I wanted to create an experience coming from the event side. I was like, it should be a complete experience when they come in. And it was, it was spectacular and beautiful. But nowadays in the online era, people come in, they try on dresses, and then they go and find them for less online and buy them used, or, you know, and so it's, I mean, retail's a hard market as is. Like brick and mortar retail is hard. Do you agree?

I never had one. I'm just like, I'm understanding, but I'm not understanding, you know what I'm saying?

Yes, yes. So brick and mortar, I feel like, is hard in general, retail, but combine that with bridal and combine that with people being able to go online and find it elsewhere. So we were in that business for 3 years, and then that same business coach was like, let's look at your profit and loss. You're sending the money from couture events after this other business that isn't making any money. It's going into a dark hole. Like we got to get you out. And I was like, no, I can do it all. I'm going to juggle it all. And I got pregnant in the meantime. And I was like, this is going to happen. It's going to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thankfully, my mom and this Coach were able to say like, let's look at the real numbers here and let's talk through it. So that was interesting, definitely.

So you're raising, you're starting a family, raising a family. You got a dying faction of the business, but you're also running the wedding planning.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, you must have been— were you— you must have been exhausted.

Yeah, I was exhausted completely and totally. And that was another, um, realization point for me of like, you, you can't do it all. And as much as you want to, you have to take a step back and realize like it's okay to let things go, to let other, other things come, right? So, so much has come out of me letting that bridal boutique go and that retail shop go. But I had to, I had to go through it and I had to try it because that, that's me. That's the entrepreneur in me. I'm like, I have to do it. I have to at least try. And so I did.

Was shutting that down your darkest day in business, or?

It was one of the darkest days, I would say. At the time when we finally got it shut down, I was at a really peaceful place. But it was definitely hard for me in the sense that I had never done anything that I hadn't succeeded at or I hadn't— that was my first time.

That's a little bit of identity punch, isn't it?

Yes. I didn't make it. And after that, it feels like everything then you question a little bit more. Whereas before I had no fear. It was just like, oh, of course we're doing this. We're going to go full speed, 100%. So I'd say that. And then another like Darkest day was probably, I was 6 years into business event planning-wise.

Yeah.

I got a phone call from my husband and he's like, hey, taxes got done. We owe $1,800. Okay, $1,800. Sounds great. When I get home, I'll write the check. And he said, really? Okay, perfect. And I said, yeah, definitely. So I get home, I write the check out and hand it to him. And he's like, oh honey, it's it's not $1,800, it's $18,000. Oh yeah. Oh, what? I don't have that money. I don't have $18,000. What is happening? How, how am I going to do this? What am I going to do? And at the time, I hadn't read Profit First. I wasn't separating out things. I wasn't holding back taxes. And I broke. Like, that was— I thought, I feel like such a, such an idiot. Like, I felt so, so naive and so dumb. Like, oh, you thought you could do this business and now look at you. What are you going to do? You know, it was shameful almost. And I just took off. I was like, I'm going to go running. And I don't run. I was like, I'm going to leave the house right now. Put on my sweats, like started running. My husband's like, oh, what's going on? You're like, my God, running at the same time. Started running back to my college. I went to Point Loma Nazarene here in San Diego. Started running back to my college. I'm going to go talk to these professors. I'm going to go, you know, but after 2 hours of running, my husband pulled up beside me in the car. He's like, honey, get in. Like, everything's okay. Get in. I was like, I don't know what to do. So we ended up, you know, we figured it out. But it was a hard realization. That was probably my darkest day. Like my day, oh my God, I shouldn't be doing this. What am I doing? Why have I done this? I put my family into debt when I should be making money.

Yeah.

I think that—

How big was your business at the point? Like what kind of revenue were you doing?

So many entrepreneurs. Well, let's see. Probably like, what would that be if it's how much of your Taxes.

Well, it's your personal taxes, so I, I don't know. I mean, uh, that's a good question. So your personal taxes were probably 30. So let's say it's 30%, um, but it was $18,000 for the year.

$18,000 for the year.

So, uh, now how do I do this? $18,000 divided by 30%. This is dumb for me, this is, to do this, but let's try it. $18,000 divided by 0.3 equals $60,000. So that— but you also expenses, you probably had like $150,000 business at the time. Does that sound right?

$150,000? Yeah, $150,000, maybe $100,000.

I just nailed it, Christelle.

Yeah. Ha!

I'm a Navy SEAL of numbers. That's what I am.

Love it.

So okay, so you did $150,000, you have $18,000 taxes. How did you pay those taxes? Do you own an installment plan?

So no, well, thankfully I was just like, okay, we have to buckle down and we gotta book more weddings. Like we have to, we have to figure this out. And so I just ramped it up and, and you know, I had, it took me like a week of like mourning of like, okay, well anything that we've earned is gone. Right. And now I need to figure out, I was like, okay, what am I going to do? I'm going to sell my wedding ring. Am I going to sell my car? I have to figure out how to pay for this, you know? So I went through all of those steps and then it was like my only option right now is really to like, I have to figure out how to bring more business in the door and how to keep that money so that it can go here. I have to cut expenses. I have to go through and do all of those, all of those things. So it was, it was a hard time. It was a hurtful time. Um, but definitely like came out stronger on the other end, right? So what—

yeah, well, you're saying so, but I mean, what was it like for your— did you have a child at the point too? You had a—

no, no.

All right, so it was you, your husband Your mom in the background, what was your husband and mom saying in your ear?

I think, you know, I had already, I was harder on myself than they were on me because I felt like I was the one who, I took this on, I did this, I decided this is what I was going to move forward with and I wasn't holding back the taxes which I should have been but I didn't realize at the time. Every year I had just gotten away with like, okay, I'm just going to, you know, pay a little bit, pay a little bit. And so that was, you know, I had done okay so far but I wasn't making that much money yet. And so then the year when I finally made money, I hadn't held anything back and I was putting money into marketing and into our location. And so I think I was hard on myself and they were on me to answer that question. But they helped me through it and helped me like, you know, my husband's like, we're not going to sell your car. That's kind of silly. We're not going to do that. Let's just like get real here, you know? Yeah.

So, all right. So a couple dark days, the 2-hour run, you had the location shut down. Fast forward to, you know, we're recording this in June. So 3 months ago, COVID hit. It sounds like you're gun-shy a little bit now from those experiences. What did you think when COVID hit?

I'm a little more like, okay, let's just do the next thing. What's next? What's coming up? Do you know about Enneagram?

Are you an Enneagram?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I'm a 7. So, I'm like, okay, what are we going to do? Let's go on another adventure. Let's do something else. But yes, but COVID hit. And at first I, um, I think I, I realized pretty quickly like this is going to be pretty drastic because this is affecting the— it's going to affect like waiters, waitresses first, but it's going to end up affecting all of us, right? So it's going to turn out being all of us. And, um, I was able to quickly say like, okay, what are we going to do? How are we going to do this? And take a step back and say like, okay, if all of our weddings cancel, postpone, what does that look like for us? What are we going to do with our payments, our contracts? All of those pieces and kind of get things in order from the start. So that was kind of my first, um, my first little bit was like figuring it out and getting it in order. Uh, and now I feel like we're, you know, we're okay. I, I, I had just written a book as well. So I wrote—

Nice. What's the book title?

It's called She Minds Her Own Business.

Oh, I like that.

Yeah. Oh, that—

look at that book. That's beautiful. Is that on Amazon now or other side? Yep.

Yep. So I had just written that. It came out January 2020. Nice. And that's, as I said, that's kind of the direction I was moving towards. And so I still had, we still have weddings on the books and we're still doing weddings, but my girls are kind of doing a lot of them. And so, but I had a book tour planned, 12 cities, 12 months. I was doing the book tour. I had a conference, the conference plan, the Women Entrepreneurship Conference. I was speaking at multiple events and everything came crashing down. It wasn't just like the wedding planning business. That was a small part of it. But, and everything got postponed and that hurt a little bit, but then it was like also everything that I had just worked so hard for, for the last 3 years on, you know, the new thing that I was focused on also went downhill. So it was, it was the actual money side of things as well as the dreams and passions that, you know, it was hard. So I would say, yeah, the first month it was like, well, this is happening, but we're going to get through it. And the second month was like, What are we gonna, how are we gonna get through this? What is gonna happen here, you know? And it's continued. We're still, I mean, we're still not out of the woods, but hopefully closer.

But then you're not, you don't have a speaking tour that you can do now.

No.

Yeah. And there's no weddings, or very few, I assume, happening.

Thank you for having me on your podcast, right?

This is your tour.

This is, yeah, this is the tour. No, podcasts have been great. But yeah, but no, there's no speaking, no events are happening right now. We're still on on lockdown here. Yeah, unless you're having a protest then.

Oh yeah, I think that's such bullshit. I'm not trying to make— protests are awesome. I just think it's bullshit that you can't gather 5 people at a restaurant, but you can have 100. I actually— that was the protocol I saw.

Yes, it's true.

I say bullshit. I just don't understand how it's safe to have 100 protesting, but not safe to have 5 at a restaurant.

You know, I agree. I completely agree. And it's not even like 100— like protesting, there's that. There was 3,000 people here in San Diego protesting downtown San Diego. Like, so, and then you can't have your wedding, or you can't have a funeral, or you can't have what? Yeah, crazy.

It's crazy. It's crazy. The whole disease is just crazy. I— have you had anyone affected by it in your family or friends?

No, thankfully. No one immediately. I do have friends of friends. Who were affected, but no one that I know personally.

I find something— so we had a friend's spouse get it but survive, and a personal business coach get it and questionable right now. And it's interesting, once it became like personal, my vantage point changed. Yeah. So first I'm like, I don't know if it's a real deal. And, and now like, let's— I got like, I got masks everywhere. I got like 3 masks with me now. I'm ready to— I mask every orifice I have, like everything's covered.

Over your eyes.

Over my eyes. So tell me about the future before we start wrapping up here. I like, what do you, what do you see your business, how's it going to turn going forward? What's the future look like for you?

Yeah, for me, I am an optimist. And so the future looks bright. And I'm like, okay, I wasn't able to do it this year. We'll do book tour next year. And we aren't able to have these weddings this year. It's okay, we'll do them next year. We're going to figure it out. We're going to get through it. And I think that's Moving forward, things are gonna look different. Life is gonna look different. You know, we also run luxury retreats. Are those gonna be happening? I don't know. These luxury weddings, how many people are gonna continue to do luxury weddings? I, you know, we have 300 people at them and, you know, at the Hotel Del a lot of times. And yeah, so what does that look like for the future? I'm not sure, but I feel like there's still gonna be— I feel like there's gonna be a smaller percentage of people that are interested in our services and It makes us kind of hone in more on what we're moving forward with in the future, right? So really figuring out like, okay, well now we have a lesser amount of people, but that smaller amount, we need to make sure that we're serving them in the best way possible.

Yeah, and you've proven you already did it. You moved from 40 weddings to 12 weddings. Krystal Stacey, hey, where can our listeners find out more about you?

Yeah, definitely, you can find me on Instagram @krystalstacey, K-R-Y-S-T-E-L, Stacey.

C-S-T-A-C-Y. Great. Christelle, thanks for letting me get up all up in your business. I really just appreciate these insights and wish you continued success.

Thank you, Mike. So nice to chat with you.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye.