7 Steps To Stop Rejecting Money In Your Bridal Business (Create Space For Overflow)

If your calendar is packed out with brides, but your bank account still stresses you out, your habits, system, pricing, and energy are literally rejecting the money you say that you want. You don't need to work harder. You need to actually create space for money to actually land and stay in your bank account. Today I'm breaking down 7 steps for you to stop leaking money and design your bridal business for overflow and not survival. I'm Marissa Brennan, a bridal business mentor, former busy but broke bridal hairstylist, and I went from undercharging, overworking myself, saying yes to every single bride or client in my chair, to earning multiple six figures working less weddings, more money in my bank account. And these are the exact shifts I made to stop leaking money. Step number one is going to be stop leaking money. You don't need more inquiries or bookings yet. You need to actually keep the money you're already making. So ask yourself, where am I undercharging? Where am I overdelivering for my brides for free? Where am I saying yes when I actually should be saying no? Because overflow can happen in your bridal business if it's built on people pleasing, customizing everything to everyone who comes in your inbox, bending every single one of your boundaries. That's not abundance, getting more money in your bank account. That's actually exhaustion dressed up as, I want to be nice to everybody. So for example, let's say you give your most requested Saturday away to the first inquiry inside your inbox, and you say, I want to be nice, so I don't want to charge her for travel because it's not that far away anyway. And maybe you decide, I'm gonna do her trial for free because she's a friend of a friend of a friend, she's a referral. And her hair or makeup look that she's requesting from you isn't one that actually lights you up inside that you're like so excited to do. You're kind of like, ah, I don't really love that look, but I guess I'll do it. Then 2 days later, after you book this bride, you get an inquiry request from your literal dream bride. She's showing you photos from your Instagram. She's getting ready at your absolute dream venue that you haven't worked at yet, and you can't wait to get into that bridal suite. And best part, she's in your inbox saying, I really hope you're available. I've been stalking you out for months. That's your money leak right there because you took a booking because you thought, ah, I need the money. Ah, she's a referral and I gotta say yes. And when you say yes to people-please for somebody else versus saying yes to you, your money leak is turning away your dream brides who are a few inquiries away. And that happens when you're customizing everything, when you're people-pleasing, when you're saying yes to everybody in your inbox versus saying yes to you because that's a no and you said yes. Your dream brides are literally one inquiry away. Step number 2 is we need to raise your capacity to actually hold. So here's what I mean by this. If you suddenly booked 10, 20 more brides for this wedding season, you got $20K more in revenue, you have 100 more brides inquiring because a reel went viral, would your systems that you have now be able to hold it, or would you actually spiral? Because overflow like that, more inquiries, more money, more bookings, here's what it actually requires. You want a clear package that is repeatable, that anyone who comes in, those 100 inquiries, you're able to say, hey, this is exactly what I have for you. You have a system in place. You're also going to want to have a repeatable booking process. Again, if you're getting more bookings, more inquiries, more brides coming in, and your system can't hold that, you're rejecting that overflow. So again, if it's a process that manually relies on you to get a response, you don't have the capacity to hold that amount of overflow. So you're calling it in, but your systems actually aren't built for that capacity. A repeatable booking process that books fast will be able to hold all of that overflow that's coming in. A booking process that converts fast is something that is going to not be so reliant on you. You'll have things that are automated versus everything being manual going through you and having a sustainable system that is running even when you're offline. Overflow also requires boundaries, so you're not doing 80+ weddings because you couldn't say no. And so if you don't have these things built in place, you're actually unintentionally turning away that overflow because money needs structure, not chaos, not Custom. It needs a repeatable booking flow so that anybody who comes in, there's ease. So if you're somebody who might be telling yourself like, "AI will ruin my bridal business. Brides always need a direct response from me. It can't be an automated follow-up. I'm not techie. I can't automate anything. I don't want to use automations. I want to be different." That right there is blocking your ease and overflow because everything is relying on you. And believe me, I used to be that person who was saying, "No, my bride needs to hear from me. She doesn't want an automated response." and I remember clear as day the exact moment everything in my bridal business shifted. During COVID I was actually on unemployment because there was no weddings, had no money coming in. Believe me, uh, I was trying to call in that overflow. I was trying to do the manifestations, all the things, but I had no weddings. They were all literally being canceled or rescheduled. There was no work for me again on unemployment, but I decided I'm gonna join a program where I can learn about building a bridal business, specifically more about the backend. So I learned all about Dubsado, a CRM that literally automates so much for your bridal business and creates like the most luxurious client experience. So you can manage your brides without even needing to be online. It's amazing. So I go through this program, I build out my Dubsado, I get my entire client infrastructure built within a couple days, maybe even a week. It was not that much at all. Now here's the important part. I had no clients to actually use it. Okay. I had no clients going into my Dubsado. I had a few older clients that I was putting in there, but I had no new clients coming in, but I still built this system anyway. Anyway, and within 12 months of building that system, creating the capacity to hold the overflow and the more clients that I was trying to call in, within 12 months I booked 80+ brides and I was able to hit my first 6-figure year. I built the system before I had the clients. And by doing that, it was almost like subconsciously preparing myself for all of this overflow and building the capacity to hold it. So if you're somebody who's telling yourself, like maybe subconsciously you believe, oh, if I call in more wedding bookings, more inquiries, or I don't really want to show up on Instagram, I don't have anything to manage those clients, I don't have more time. That's when you need to build the systems, the habits, and have that in place before you're calling in all of that overflow. Because if you don't have those in place, when all those clients do come in, it might lead to a bad client experience— emails getting missed, inquiries getting missed, brides booking at old rates. Build the system before you have the clients. This will increase your capacity for overflow that you're calling in. Step number 3, you want to make make more room by doing less. Overflow doesn't come from doing more things. It actually comes from doing less and removing more of yourself and doing the right things repeatedly, the right things that actually bring in more money into your bridal business. That's what you want to be focusing on. So right now, ask yourself, what are the action steps that bring inquiries into my business? What actually converts brides? What does that step-by-step process look like? Then cut the fluff. Literally stop doing everything else. Not everything needs to be relying on you. Because every extra thing that you're doing, like maybe editing content, scrolling on Instagram trying to get inspiration, and then 3 hours later you're still there and haven't posted a thing— that drains your energy, splits your focus, blocks your consistency to actually show up, right? And what abundance actually loves is simplicity. Because the simpler your system is, by focusing on those 2 things that are actually generating money in your bridal business, you're going to be able to show up better, show up more consistently in those true action steps, steps and leverage them. And that's going to generate more abundance, more money, more inquiries and bookings into your bridal business. Stop focusing on what everybody else is telling you you have to do and focus on what actually is generating the money in your business. So again, ask yourself, when I do what action, what leads to inquiries in my business? Kind of reverse engineer it. Or even ask yourself, if I took away everything else in my business that I'm doing right now— write it all down, everything that you do day to day— if you take away everything else besides what brings you inquiries, and books you brides, what's left? Those are the things you want to be focusing on. Cut all the other noise. Step number 4, clean up your money identity. Now you might hear like mindset matters, you need to manifest. Like, yes, 1,000%. I agree. This is where mindset actually matters, but not in like a fluffy way, in a behavioral way of like how you're showing up in your identity, what you actually are telling yourself and believe, because that's going to dictate and create your behaviors in your bridal business. So if deep down you believe brides won't pay me more, brides won't pay that in this area, I have to work harder in order to earn more money, I need more weddings on my calendar to feel secure, subconsciously what that's going to do with your money identity, you're going to overwork yourself, underprice your services, and avoid being visible on social media because that's a scarcity operating system. And instead you want to operate from an abundance operating system. So instead of telling yourself I can't charge that in my market, brides won't pay that in this area. You are then telling your brain to literally go on a scavenger hunt and find all of the evidence to support that theory. So instead, what if you tell your brain, find me all of the brides who will pay higher rates? So then what you can do to find evidence to support that is all of the vendors in your area who are not bridal hairstylists or makeup artists but are photographers, venues, because brides are still going to be paying $50,000, $100,000, multiple six figures for their weddings, whether that's you or with somebody else. And if you're somebody who truly feels like you need to stay underpriced or you need to work harder and more weddings in order to have a six-figure career, you gotta check out my Price to Profit training, link down below for you. I'll walk you through how to create packages, how you're earning more working less, the exact system that you can steal that took me from having to work 70 to 100 weddings a year to only 35 and still hitting six figures, all without getting ghosted. The link is down in the description box below for you. Step number 5: Design your bridal business for overflow, not survival. Majority of bride pros that I see and that I work with over the hundreds that I've audited their business within the past few years, majority of them build their businesses from the lens of how can I book more weddings, how can I fill my calendar with more bookings. But overflow is going to come from how can I earn more per wedding. Because when you max out your calendar, you literally can't get any more brides. You only work one Saturday. So if you are booking all of those Saturdays and you're not charging more per wedding, how are you actually going to create more revenue in your business. So here are some of my favorite ways that I was able to design my business for overflow versus survival, because survival is really the mentality of, I need to book more weddings, I constantly need to be working, I need to be doing, doing, doing, doing. And your nervous system doesn't feel safe in relaxing because you feel like your money is tied to your outputs. Like, if you worked in a salon, you're always constantly taught like time is money, so you constantly want to be busy. And the whole booked and busy mentality is such a flex, isn't it? I'm here to tell you, not Really? Did I used to believe that? Absolutely. But now the real flex is how can I earn more from one wedding? Wouldn't you rather be working 1 to 2 weddings a week versus like 4? Because I highly doubt you got into this business to just be booked and busy all the time versus actually enjoying that overflow of not needing to take time off for vacation. You can just take time off whenever. And so some of the ways that I was actually able to design my business this way was packaging my services in a way that allowed me to earn more per wedding, having a booking minimum that I'm gonna pack up and leave my house for. Creating strategic upsells that are going to take my bride's booking from $1,700 to $3,300 and earning more from one wedding versus having to work more weddings on my calendar. Those things are going to change the game for you because your calendar is ultimately capped. You work one wedding every single day, but your revenue per bride is not. Step number 6 to shift your business to stop leaking money is you want to create space. Space. Like, literally, if your life right now feels like constantly rushing, constantly feeling like you need to worry about showing up on social media, burnout, anxiety about responding to a bride in your inbox, you have absolutely no time to think, there's no room for expansion and overflow right now. And the 3 things that are required to create room for that expansion are going to be white space in your schedule. So it feels super counterintuitive, and believe me, I'm pretty logical. So when I first started doing this, I was like, what do you mean white space in my schedule. Like, this literally means when you pull up your calendar, if everything is time blocked out and you have no space for yourself to actually think, as creatives, that is creating more burnout, more anxiety, and that's not helping you. So if you're just constantly go, go, go, go, go, and you have no white space, what ends up happening is your creativity is going to be sucked, and that's going to be your money leak right there. So instead of having creative ideas for yourself, and if you're constantly second-guessing what to post on social media, what to say, and everything feels really hard and sticky, especially around that, or like how to respond to clients and things like that, you stop listening to yourself. And then you start scrolling on social media and believing everything that everyone is telling you to do. Because you're so stuck in the go-go-go, the hustle, you have no white space to think and get that creativity from within. So white space for me looks like going on a gym break, going outside, taking my dogs for a walk. Like when you are out in nature and you're just listening to music and you're taking like an hour for yourself throughout the day, that's when all of your best ideas are going to come to you because they're coming from within. You're not seeking outside validation of, oh, this person's posting that on social media, let me do the same thing. It's coming from you and what you actually want to do, and that's where you need to trust and create that space for it. You need time to think like a CEO, and you need to create the space and the energy to actually receive and be aware of these opportunities that are downloading to you. Like, have you ever found that maybe when you're on vacation or you take time off from your business, you get all these great, amazing content ideas or things that you want to do in your business or things that you want to leave behind because you've created this space for it. Because my girl, we can't attract abundance when we're running on empty. Okay? If your cup is empty, you have to fill it back up in order to be able to serve your business even better. And step number 7 is just going to be having more awareness, understanding what overflow is and what overflow is not. Overflow isn't more clients, more social media posts, more from you. It's better systems, higher paying brides, higher value brides, stronger boundaries, and cleaner energy so that you're able to create that space for the overflow to exist. And ask yourself this question: if your business suddenly doubled tomorrow, what systems would break in your business? Have awareness to that. And even ask yourself, if you don't have the overflow right now, ask yourself, if you— if I gave you 100 inquiries, if I gave you 100 brides tomorrow for the rest of this wedding season, what would break in your business? I could probably to think of a few. Like, you probably wouldn't be able to respond to all those emails, so some would get lost, and maybe even dream brides would get lost. If you're still somebody who has no boundaries and you don't know which brides you want to say no to, and you're still saying yes to every bride, you're likely going to take a bride who you underprice yourself, maybe give things for free, or maybe it's not really a look that you love or a venue that you love or are drawn to that you want to work at again and again. You say yes to when the bride email after that is going to be your actual dream, right? So writing down what would break if overflow came in tomorrow, that's where you're going to find your money leak. Let's start creating those habits, systems, and get your pricing all aligned to create that overflow in your business. Join my free training, Price Yourself to Profit, where I walk you through my 3-step framework to increase your prices without getting ghosted and exactly how you're going to attract your dream bride so you become her number one choice, not her backup plan. I'll see you in the next one. Bye!