Wedding Business Solutions

Are you focused on sales or profits?

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Are you focused on sales or profits?

Are you caught up in the race to increase sales, or are you strategically focusing on boosting your profits? In this episode, I dive into the importance of understanding the difference between sales and profits. What are the true costs of your services? Are you maximizing profitability on high-demand dates? How can you ensure every dollar contributes to your bottom line? Find out how to shift your mindset from merely keeping the lights on to truly paying yourself first.

Listen to this new 10-minute episode for insights on optimizing your profitability and strategic tips for making the most of every sale.

Episode Summary: 

In this episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast, I delve into the crucial distinction between focusing on sales versus profits within your business. Drawing from my own experiences and lessons from the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, I emphasize the importance of prioritizing profitability over sheer sales volume. I discuss how raising prices strategically, especially on high-demand dates, and offering top-tier packages can significantly boost profits. I also highlight the impact of ancillary services and upgrades on your bottom line. This insightful episode is essential listening if you're aiming to maximize profitability without sacrificing quality or overextending your resources.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 


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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Are you focused on sales or profits? Listen to this episode. Find out where I'm going with this. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. For this one, I wanted to talk about the difference between focusing on sales and focusing on profits. When you're new in business, it's all about sales. That's what we're thinking about is sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. And I don't know about you, but when I was new in business, when I left the knot in 2011, gosh, 13 years ago, already my first full year in business, 2012, I'm focused on selling.

Why? Well, we're trying to keep the lights on, right? That's what we're trying to do with the new business. And my first full year, 2012, I looked at the top line and was like, wow, that looks pretty good for a first year. And then I looked at the bottom line and said, that looks terrible. And that's because I didn't know what to charge. Like many of you, I don't know what to charge because, let's face it, we all make up our price right now, maybe we're using data and things like that, but when you're in a service business, you're really not using cost of goods sold and things like that. Like, I can do that with my books because I know what it costs to print a book, to ship a book and things like that. But when it comes to a service, you're valuing your time. And it's really hard to figure that out because, I mean, I could take my hourly rate, which sounds really good, except I'm not charging that rate or I'm not getting that rate 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, Right? The same as a day rate.

Right? When you, you're working on a Saturday, on a wedding, or you're working, whatever you're, whatever type of event you're doing, you can't be doing anything else. So you're getting that rate. But what about the time you're working on your business? What about the time you're working on sales and marketing and things like that? You're not getting paid directly for that time. So at certain points, you have to start focusing on profits. Now, profit is what pays your retirement. Profit is your vacation. Profit is all those other things. It's not electricity and it's not your equipment, and it's not your advertising and marketing and things like that.

That's not where profit goes. Right? Profit is, after all of that, if you've not read the book Profit first by Mike Michalowicz. I absolutely think you have to do that if you own a business or are thinking about owning a business. Profit first by Mike Michalowicz is a must read. It gets you to think about Prof. Profit differently. And if you do what he says in there, which is create different bank accounts, I have one labeled Profit. And when we need something here for the house, that's not a must, right? Like, again, we must pay the electricity and the gas and all stuff like that.

But when, oh, when the refrigerator went, and my wife said, hey, I saw this refrigerator I want, and here's the one or the glass door and all this kind of stuff, and I said, how much is it? And she told me, and I went to the profit account and I said, oh, look, the money's there already. Go ahead. Go ahead and do that. Right. Same thing we've done with other things here. So profit is those things. But you need to think about that difference. Your goal is to be more profitable when you have supply and demand in your favor.

And if you've heard me talk on episodes about your A dates and your B dates and your C dates and so forth. If you think about with weddings, October being the busiest month all across the United States, right? And wherever you are in the country or in the world, you might have whatever month is the busiest for you. Saturday being the busiest night we know that is. Somehow everybody's got to have Saturday night. You want to be the most profitable because that is when supply and demand is in your favor. So you don't want to be selling the cheapest thing you have on a Saturday night in season when somebody else will come along and be willing to pay more. So think about profitability. Now, if you decide that you want to work on a Tuesday in an off season, you might not be as profitable, but for you, it might be, hey, it's fine, I'm working, it's okay.

Or if you have staff, you're bringing in money that helps pay the payroll on the staff, you're not as profitable. That's an okay way to do that. You don't want to be doing that on your most popular days. In the most popular months. I've had some people that I've worked with that especially if it's just you. If you are what they would call a single op. Single operator, right? I am a solopreneur. A lot of you are solopreneurs.

Therefore, we can only do one thing, and there isn't anybody else bringing in revenue on that day at that time. So if you are a solopreneur, you want to make sure that you're being the most profitable on those days, because that's when you have the opportunity to do that versus other times. For instance, I had somebody I was working with that had different services, and maybe some of you have different services you offer or different packages and you just don't have to offer those on the most popular days. There was somebody I met at one of the DJ conferences and I talked about that. I said, you have three packages, and on the most most popular days, those A plus days, you don't have to offer anything except the top package. They're already paying top for everything else. They're paying top for the venue, they're paying top probably for their photographer and caterer, et cetera. And the following year, same conference person came up to me and said, thank you so much.

I have doubled my profitability because on those days I'm only offering the top package and people are buying it. It's because if they want your results, they have to pay your price. And if what you're offering is that particular package or that particular service at that price and they your results, they have to pay it. The advantage of supply and demand being in your favor on those A and A plus dates is that you pretty sure that somebody else is going to come along after you're booked and ask you if you're available on that date. That's not the case on some of the B or the C dates, but it's certainly the case on the A and the A plus dates. I know I've had dates like that where three and four people have asked me for the same date. I actually just had somebody I was talking to and we're talk trying to figure out a time for me to come and they said, can you do this? I said, nope, already booked. Can you do this? Nope, already booked.

Fortunately, we're trying to work something around my schedule that doesn't always happen. There are conferences that happen on dates I've had to turn down because I'm already booked somewhere else. So you want to think about profitability and say, okay, is it a matter of charging a different price on different days? Some of you do that, some of you don't. Is it a matter of saying, this is it, this is my price, no matter the day of the week, the month of the year, or whatever, that's what I do with my particular services. Like if you bring me in for a day of training or A Mastermind day or speaking. I don't charge by the hour, I don't charge different based upon the time of the year. That's it. And just like you, the only way I'm going to come off of that rate is if I'm getting something of value back.

Right? Because every dollar you discount without getting something of value back is profit you gave away. Remember, profit you're giving away. When you lower your price and you give them everything you were going to give them at the higher price, you're giving away profit. So the next time somebody asks you for a discount on an A or an A plus date, remember they're asking for your car payment, your mortgage payment, your vacation, your retirement. That's what they're asking for because that's where the profit goes. So don't be so fast to give that away. But also think about in terms of profitability, how can you increase your profit on those most popular days or better yet, on every day? So maybe your base service, you feel you've maxed at this point, right? Because you maybe raise it in the future. But what about the ancillary services? What about the upgrades? Every dollar you raise your price without giving them any more is additional profit for you.

So depending upon your service, where else can you raise that price? So if you're a dress shop, can you raise the price on the accessories a little bit? Right. And again, volume might be the thing here. It might only be a few dollars, but a few dollars times hundreds of sales, that's real money. Or it could it be. If you're an entertainment company, could you raise the price a little bit on the photo booth or the gobo or the. Or the special effects? Right. If you're a photographer, can you raise the price a little bit on the albums or prints or other things they might be buying or video? What else do you have there that you could raise the price a little? Or are there things like, you know, being a content creator that you can add into your video or photography services with that, and that additional profit onto your sales? Every additional profit times the number of weddings that you're going to do or events. If you do more than just weddings, that's what you're really looking at is how can I be more profitable? Increase sales.

You can increase sales by lowering your price and more people will buy. That's usually not a good plan. However, supply and demand being in your favor or not, if you say, listen, I'd rather work in the wintertime when I'm not, maybe you'll have a lower price then than you will in the more popular months, assuming winter is slower for you. So again, sales versus profit. Increasing sales is good, but I know a lot of people have increased their sales and not increase their profits because what it costs to get there in marketing, in staffing, in equipment, in insurance, and all these other things has eaten up that additional profit. So, yeah, the top line looks good, but the bottom line doesn't look any better or in some case, look worse. I have a friend of mine who his business had a million dollars in sales, and he was like, that's great. He got to join this thing called the million dollar Roundtable, the million dollar sales club.

But he said, when I was selling a half a million, I was actually profiting more than I am at a million because of all the additional work and staffing and things that it took to get to that point. So where's that sweet spot? Right, right. Sizing your business so that you're the most profitable without going higher in sales, where you're not making any more, you're just working, and now you're just spinning like a mouse on a treadmill. So think about profit versus sales and try to focus on the profit. And for next year and beyond, how can you increase the profit of each sale a little bit more? Because all of that adds up at the end of the year. And if you need my help, you know where to find me. Thanks for listening.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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