Do you struggle to set boundaries? If yes, you’re not alone. This has been something I’ve struggled with most of my life.
I would say yes to things because otherwise, I would feel like a “bad person” for saying no. But in the end, I would end up overbooking and feeling resentful. Sound familiar?
Learning how to set productive boundaries has been a work in progress. Most entrepreneurs struggle with a work-life balance because their work is their life, and their life is their work! Setting your schedule can have its pros and cons.
In this week’s female founder series, Michelle Hanna & Liz Choi, founders of the full service wedding and event company Love Wildly Co, shared that to grow the business, they had to say no. These two powerhouse women shared that besides self-care, they learned that saying no or putting a ceiling on the amount of work that they received gave them extra time to recharge and connect with their families.
This is not an easy feat. It’s HARD TO SAY NO- especially while growing a business. But boundaries are good! Brene Brown says it best when she states compassionate people set limits!
I often keep that sentence in the back of my mind when I’m feeling the pressure on making decisions that involve other people. I always ask myself before I make a business decision, “how does this relate to my bigger picture and my why?” This helps me choose priorities that are congruent to my purpose. I do agree saying yes to opportunities can help you learn and navigate the business world. I would also say that sometimes we take on too much which then impedes on us taking actual action.
When our lists are too long it can feel overwhelming to work on our projects. Learning how to set boundaries can absolutely expand your business. I recently heard that Jenna Kutcher worked the least amount of the hours this year after having her daughter and MADE THE MOST amount of money. She chose to find more balance and invest in projects and business opportunities that fulfilled her purpose rather than just doing them to do them.
I really enjoyed reading through his feature! Michelle & Liz commented on how wonderful it has been to have worked together after so many years of friendship. They also talk about what it was like growing the business while they were still at their 9-5’s. I think this is an important thing to discuss because majority of us can’t just jump at quitting our jobs. We have to be building while we are working. These savvy partners made sure to have a solid foundation under their belts before they truly took it to the next level.
Michelle & Liz do incredible work and their clients would completely agree! Do you have an event coming up and would like to learn more about Love Wildly Co you can visit their website by clicking here and under the contact us form send in an inquiry. If you are interested in collaborating with amazing duo feel free to email them at hello@lovewildlyco.com or check out their Instagram & Facebook pages!
Please welcome Love Wildly Co!
What is YOUR story!? Tell us a bit about your background both personally and professionally.
Love Wildly Co was birthed out of a place where we were searching for an outlet to create. Our inspiration came from a personal need to create plus a seen opportunity to use our gifts to build a business for our families. We have been best friends for over 18 years and despite what so many told us about the dangers of friends going into business together, we have yet to touch those bounds. We decided early on that business or no business, our friendship would be our priority. Through the founding first years, where things are usually the hardest, we have managed to maintain our promise to each other. Sounds cheesy, but we couldn’t have picked a better half to run this business and do life with! We continue to inspire and challenge each other through the ups and downs of both our personal and business life which makes running LWC fun and exciting every time we have an event, strategy meetings, or when we get together to go eat Shabu Shabu.
The first year, we did all that we could to gain experience. We worked at no cost and made all the mistakes we needed to make so that we could lay down a solid foundation for the years ahead. We asked hard questions, we cried, we fought, we laughed a lot, and learned quickly. The second year, we rebranded our company from True Events Co to Love Wildly Co. We wanted to rebrand to really give our business a name that we live and stand by. We felt that giving an identity to our business would help us to continue to build a stronger business and connection to our clients & vendors. We did a lot of marketing and ground work in the second year. Any convention we could showcase our work, we booked! Photoshoots and collaborations with other vendors helped structure our business and set it up for success. Lots of dreaming here and of course we doubled in our sales (insert praise hands here)!!! Then, here we are in our third year and looking back, we have been so blessed with the most amazing clients. It takes a lot to plan one of the most memorable days of your life and we get the honor and privilege of being entrusted with all the details.
This gives us purpose and we are beyond grateful for all our past, present, and future clients who let us share in these moments with them. Dreaming was done and now in our third year, we are taking real steps to make them a reality. We have a dream of becoming a one-stop-shop for our clients and bring everything in house. This year, we have incorporated paper good such as invites, escort cards, table numbers, save the dates, menus, seating charts, welcome signs, etc. We have also added custom signage! Soon, we will add florals to our list of services. Florals have been fun to learn but very challenging. Which tells us that we are going in the right direction. We never want to stop growing or become comfortable. We want to continue dreaming and learning to become the best versions of ourselves but also the best version of Love Wildly Co for our clients. So please continue to support and follow our journey on IG @lovewildlyco. We so appreciate you all!
Michelle Hanna, co-founder Love Wildly Co
Tell us more about your business and what you do!
We are a full-service event planning and designing company. Our clients reach out to us when they are trying to plan an event for special occasions. Most find areas of challenge whether it’s trying to design the space, logistical challenges, or finding the right vendors to bring their vision together. Many of our clients do not have the luxury of time due to their professional and personal lives and they need someone to take over. Our goal is to ease the stress and make sure they remember how fun and amazing their event was.
We are proud of what our company stands for. We work with integrity and go above and beyond for our clients. We are known for our excellent customer service and response time. Ask anyone!
Looking back would you do anything different?
We both agree that working for someone in the industry to learn the groundwork and best practices would have been beneficial. It would have saved a lot of hours and heartache, but we learned a lot from our mistakes and grew from them. Thats all that matters, right?
What is your favorite thing about being an entrepreneur?
The freedom to be as creative and push our limits to whatever we want.
Share your favorite moment or moments while growing your business.
Our favorite moments will probably have to be those late nights we stayed up after our 9-5PM job to create a business plan and the basic foundations for our event planning business. There were many times we only had a couple hours or sleep but our most favorite thing to do during these brainstorming sessions was to eat delicious foods, snacks, and desserts. We are foodies!
What are some of the challenges of being an entrepreneur?
Owning your own business can be lonely at times. Especially when you’re fixing issues and trying to find solutions. Sure, we have each other but sometimes we are lost and have no idea what we are doing. In those cases, we must make sure to support and build confidence in each other so we can bring our A Game. That’s what we do, fix problems and make sure our clients are happy.
What about some of the challenges you face as a female entrepreneur?
The industry that we are in is predominantly female so it’s been amazing to be supported by many woman and have that community behind us. The hardest part for us as female entrepreneurs is finding that work/life balance so we can make time for our families. We have a huge responsibly to our husbands and children and also to our clients and business. We’ve learned that sometimes saying “no” or putting a ceiling on amount of work that we receive can give us the extra time we need to recharge and connect with our families.
Advice for other other female entrepreneurs or those looking to get started?
Be Confident, Be Strong and just GO for it.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Always ask, you will never know if you never ask.
What is your favorite quote?
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Liz Choi, co-founder of Love Wildly Co
How do you avoid burnout?
We must make a conscious effort to take a rest day at least once a week to unwind and turn off our phones. In addition, we treat each other out to massages, shopping, and eating delicious foods without conversations about work. We are very in tuned with each other’s needs since we are best friends and make sure we connect to that space often.
We know all entrepreneurs work differently. How do you schedule your day?
In our line of work, prepping for the day is essential. When you have 8 events to plan for at the same time, it can get overwhelming, so we make sure to plan out big projects months in advance, meetings and phone calls weeks in advance, and daily tasks the night before. This way we are setup for success in a organized manner and we can knock out those TO DO items.
What are your MUST have tools?! (things like organization, calendars, social media, payment platforms, business development sources...etc.)
Honeybook is our business mangement tool. It allows us to email clients, book them, create proposals, sign clients, process payment, and many more business related items.
Wix.com is our website server. Its very important to have a website to help support your business and display to clients your credibility
Dropbox is a wonderful software we use to save client photos, documents, and a shared space between clients and our team.
Gmail suite is a must for us! We use google docs 110% of the time when we plan with our clients.
Instagram/Facebook is used for all of our social media efforts.
Yelp/Knot is a space for us to show other potential clients our work based on customer reviews.
Time Tree is a shared calendar we both use to show current events, meetings, phone calls, etc.
How do you advertise your brand?
Yelp, The Knot, Instagram, Facebook, expo/conventions, and styled shoots!
I love that Michelle & Liz talk about prepping prior to their events and planning ahead. I think that this is a great tip that we can all adapt. Think of it like meal prepping. How much more organized and in control do you feel when Monday rolls around? Something I’ve been trying to do in my own business is batch planning. If you are unfamiliar batch planning or batch writing is taking one or two days and knocking out a bunch of the same time of work rather than spreading it out. It can be hard to find the time to do this but I promise you it.is.worth.it.
I hope you enjoyed today’s feature! Only 2 more to go in this female founder’s series!
As always if you have questions & comments about Leader of the Pax and how you can work with us - drop a line below!