IN THE CONVO: Wedding business strategist, Michelle Loretta, recounts her impressive transition from accountant to stationer, and finally to a financial guiding light in the event industry. Discover how she turned her flair for numbers into a successful business, guiding fellow creatives through the art of business planning and the inevitable ups and downs of the market. Michelle's candid storytelling, from launching a stationery line to founding the Be Sage conference, offers invaluable lessons in perseverance and adaptation for anyone navigating their own business terrain. Honestly, one of my favorite convos yet!
CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:
🌐 https://besageconsulting.com/
📸 https://www.instagram.com/besagealways/
🎁 Cashflow Planning for Event Business Owners -https://besageconsulting.com/cashflow
CONNECT WITH CARIN:
Hey CEO! Join us over at our new membership the Success Cellar 🍾 - exclusively for growth-minded wedding pros just like you!
🌟Write a review, share, and tag @celebrationpros for your first month free!
IN THE CONVO: Wedding business strategist, Michelle Loretta, recounts her impressive transition from accountant to stationer, and finally to a financial guiding light in the event industry. Discover how she turned her flair for numbers into a successful business, guiding fellow creatives through the art of business planning and the inevitable ups and downs of the market. Michelle's candid storytelling, from launching a stationery line to founding the Be Sage conference, offers invaluable lessons in perseverance and adaptation for anyone navigating their own business terrain. Honestly, one of my favorite convos yet!
CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:
🌐 https://besageconsulting.com/
📸 https://www.instagram.com/besagealways/
🎁 Cashflow Planning for Event Business Owners -https://besageconsulting.com/cashflow
CONNECT WITH CARIN:
Hey CEO! Join us over at our new membership the Success Cellar 🍾 - exclusively for growth-minded wedding pros just like you!
🌟Write a review, share, and tag @celebrationpros for your first month free!
Welcome back to the Celebration Pro podcast Again. Your host here, karen Hunt. I'm so excited to have you all here today and, you know, something that I've been working on and I'm not doing a very great job of is trying not to use the word exciting. I feel like I use it for everything and I really need to just pull up a word of synonyms and just have it out and start playing around with some new words. But we are, we're so excited. Today I have Michelle Loretta. She is a strategist for event industry, for the event industry and she's the creator of the B Sage conference and consulting, and formerly it was known as the Sage wedding pros. She's been an educating, coaching and consulting with event professionals since 2009. So she has so much gold to give us today and I won't get any more into it because we love to hear a good origin story from our speakers. So, michelle, one thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Of course, and please tell us a little bit about you. A lot of our listeners are actually are down here in our territory, if you want to let them know where you're at too. And then just a little bit of your backstory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm in Miami and my background is that I studied accounting. That's what I went to college for. I worked for one of those big four accounting firms called Deloitte. That's where I learned the ins and outs of numbers. But when you're in your mid 20s, you're kind of a little rebellious and you're wanting to explore other careers and I decided that stationery design was where I wanted to land. And so in 2004, I started a stationary industry and that's how I or a stationary business and that's how I got into the industry. I love this industry so much that stationary business because I had a corporate background.
Speaker 2:A lot of people would come to me, especially for financial advice, like how do I do this or what's a P&L and how do I determine my ROI on something? I decided to start a business blog in 2009. There weren't a lot of educators that were teaching on the business of weddings at that time. They were probably a handful of us, and so I had this blog. It was called Sage Wedding Pros. I would publish an article every single day teaching somebody how to do something. From that, we began a consultancy and started teaching people Every day.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I had to sit here.
Speaker 2:I wrote a blog post every day, five days a week, so not Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 1:So not five years People.
Speaker 2:Yes, can you imagine now I'm not writing on the blog as often at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not good for you. It's hard to keep up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but in those days. So you think about what people are doing to get found on Instagram. In those days you could really get found on blogging. I would be nobody if it wasn't for blogging and Twitter. But that was 2009, right. So who uses Twitter in our industry for business these days? Nobody. So that's how I got known and we started teaching business planning workshops called the Simple Plan, and then staffing workshops called the People Plan, and then started consulting people, and so these days I primarily do what's called fractional CFO or part-time CFO services for event business owners, and I produce a conference called B Sage Conference for experienced business owners, typically in business around 10 years, who are looking to continue leveling up their business.
Speaker 1:That's. It's amazing, that's what a story. You went from numbers to paper. Yeah, numbers to paper. Back to numbers, on my own terms. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Numbers on my own term. I love the fact that I can work with creative people and still work in the events industry. It's been almost 20 years now and but I get to show people how to make money and be profitable and scale their business and things like that.
Speaker 1:You're like a triple threat. You've got like you can write, you can count, you can create. This is great. So my brother is a CPA, he's a oh yeah, yeah, he's a partner for Crow Accounting out in Nashville, ok, and I always say I'm like when you were born you took every ounce of mathematics out of mom, like you got all those genes Totally and I got all the creative genes. So it's yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, my brother got all the cooking genes. I can't cook to save my life. Ok, well, there's something yeah.
Speaker 1:Well again, thank you so much for coming on. Today we're going to talk about a topic that I think is so important and we don't hear a lot about. I mean, we hear all of us saying like, how are we supposed to continue business during these slow seasons? Yeah, we don't hear the solution. We're all just kind of out here like questioning each other how are you doing it? How are you doing it? Michelle's going to bring us a lot of insight to this. So, with entrepreneurship being business owners one, it's not for the faint of heart, yeah. And so it becomes this like roller coaster ride, just in general. I mean, week to week we don't know exactly what we're in for, and then you have that seasonal shift. So throughout the country we have different seasons. Right now we're all in engagement season, so it's the ones we all get to share. But what would you say to somebody on this topic who's looking to maybe start a business or feeling kind of weary in this area?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so much of being successful in this industry but also really any business or your career is learning by doing. You have to just jump in and start learning from others with the craft side of things. Try to get as much experience as possible I would say around two to three years in business. No-transcript, this thing has legs. I can make this into a business. I think I have a viable business model. I'd say that around that time is a good time to do to write a business plan, and you can do it earlier, of course, but I don't think at that time that you do it earlier you're going to just have a lot of pencil. You know pencil ideas. At two or three years you kind of know a little bit more about who your client is. You really kind of you know, know a little bit more about who you want to work with, how you should be priced, how your business is going to run. You kind of start to also see like how this could be profitable, right, you can predict a little bit more at that.
Speaker 2:A little bit more. Yeah, exactly. So if you're looking, you know, if you're looking at this industry, you're like, oh, you know it's, I'm not really sure I want to do it. Just start, you know, start producing. And then, you know, try to put some plans into place. You know, and a business plan it doesn't need to be something that you are going to launch around or, you know, walk around to investors, unless that's something you want to seek out. It doesn't have to be in, you know, fuddy Dutty, you know, formal document. By any stretch. It just needs to have three fundamentals A marketing plan, an operational strategy and a financial plan.
Speaker 2:Marketing is who are you selling to? What are you selling? You know, what are you selling, how much are you selling it for and how are you going to market it? Like how are people going to find you? Right With operations is like how does this business run? How does this happen? How do you produce events? Are there people that are going to help you run these events or run your business? And then finances is how is this business going to make money? A business plan is that simple. You can actually find a free one on my website. I didn't mean to plug that, but there is a share on my website.
Speaker 1:That's helpful. That's what I was going to say. I'm like, okay, we're fine, write down all those questions, yeah, on the on the homepage of my on my website b-stage consulting.
Speaker 2:There's a free one you can download.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, um, the funny thing with that that, uh, so I do that constantly. So I have like my, my CEO day, right, oh yeah, good, so actually today is CEO day. So I'm getting into like my data and my finances and everything, and I think something important to know is that kind of like okay, so you're in your like two to three years of business and you're like okay, I kind of get like how this is going to roll, let's, let's write down a plan and then over the next three years, that plan is very likely going to shift 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not always going to be your first shift right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it should shift right, Because you should. As a business owner, you have to be adaptable and adjustable, and things like that. I think people don't write a plan because they get scared that things are going to move or oh, I'm going to lose my target or I'm not going to hit my goal, or whatever it's like. No, it needs to be a very pliable plan.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. What do they say? Failure is redirection. It's like fail. Okay. Well, now we have to pivot because clearly that didn't work. So on to the next thing. And if you do reach a goal, amazing, pop a bottle, definitely, celebrate. And then, oh, what's the next big goal? Yeah, so you're definitely always kind of growing and changing. So how can wedding pros prepare for typical busy and slow seasons to keep their businesses more than just a float? So we know it's a business, yeah, yeah, and we understand our seasons a little better. How do we navigate through that so that we can keep moving forward to the big goals we have.
Speaker 2:You know, there's two things I think that business owners have to do at every stage in business. The first thing is to always be hustling, and that can sound very exhausting, especially like in the middle of busy season or at the end of busy season or with three years of PTSD post COVID Really hard. I know people are still feeling fatigued from what we've been through. But here's the thing like, in order to make it through those slow periods or, you know, poor economies or anything like that you need to be visible to people. People need to be able to see you, and so hustling involves, you know, networking and building relationships and, you know, continuing to nurture the relationships you have and being seen at you know, industry events and conferences and things like that.
Speaker 2:You have to be visible at all times. You can't wait for things to slow down and be like, oh my gosh, I better go. You know, touch base with those venues, Like by that point it's too late. So I think what happens a lot of times and I'm seeing this a little bit right now because everyone is so busy this summer and they weren't as visible as they could have been, because they were just too busy you were working with your clients. Of course, you're too busy to go do stuff. Now that it's slower and it's like, wow, my inquiries are down. And it's like, well, because people haven't seen you, because you've been too busy, right, it all makes sense.
Speaker 1:Well, our number one client is a referral. Yes, 100% so if we're not out there getting the name out and people were not at top of mind we don't get the number 100%. This is like oh, I love this Everyone everyone's listening. They're like oh, this is Karen's jam.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, listen, I've been in this industry for 20 years and I'll tell you like there's always going to be a new social media du jour, a new ad. When I was doing stationery, it was style me pretty as where everyone needed to be seen. In 2009, when I started my blog, it was Twitter, right. So we can kind of look back and be like, wow, times have changed. What has not changed? Relationships, right.
Speaker 2:And once you're at about five, somewhere in the five to 10 year window in business, 80% of your business will come from referrals. So if that business is coming from referrals or you wanted to get there like how's that going to be? You need to be visible in some way. Do it on your terms, but you need to remain visible, right. So that's the first thing, to kind of get through the highs and lows of busy and slow season.
Speaker 2:And the second thing is you really do need to have a financial plan, and I like a cash flow plan, because the cash flow plan is forcing you to look at the upcoming year or upcoming 12 months and really look to see when are my deposits that are coming in a little bit slow and when are they a little bit more fluid and during those slow months you can cut.
Speaker 2:You can see the dips in a cash flow plan and you can see okay, what do I need to do to make it through those dips? Do I need to save money? Do I need to change my payment plans? Do I need to hustle? Do I need to write like, what are the things I'm going to do to get through those dips? It's a very visual confirmation or, you know, forecast, of dips. We're right now like we navigate dips, when we are slapped in the face with them, like if you don't have a financial plan, the dip comes and you're like, oh crap, what do I do now? Right, so if you have that plan, you can see it coming and you can adjust and adapt your business. That visibility, or that ability to see with your numbers is so powerful.
Speaker 1:I have a question that's not on the list. Yeah, let's do it, we'll see how it goes. Yeah, so I've always, when I had my wedding planning business, we would be very slow in the summer because it would be very, very hot and all of our venues down here are outdoor.
Speaker 1:We do have some beautiful indoor venues now, which is very exciting, so it does help fill in some of the year. But the question I have is like during summer, we would well I guess this is going to lead into the question During the summer, when we were slow, we would see how we could help other vendors. We just had that consulting gene where we could come in and be like there's a venue that's struggling, they're trying to get on their feet, we'd go over, we'd give them, we would help the website and all the different things, and so we would end up getting paid by working with other vendors in different ways, which helped us through our slow season. Now, not everybody can do that, it's a different thing. But there is the idea of maybe through the summer, maybe you have a watermelon photo shoot for kids.
Speaker 2:So there's different things.
Speaker 1:You can pull from your own talent pool to fill in those times. This has nothing to do with my question. I'm going totally off.
Speaker 2:So that's just a tip.
Speaker 1:But my question is what about when we're bringing in those deposits? So say, I bring in a deposit, we're in 2023, right, I bring in a deposit today for this couple and we're just going to go easy structure 50% now, 50% 30 days before the wedding. We're a year out, so we take one now and then now we don't get the rest of that money until December of 2024. How should we allocate that deposit, since it's in a different year.
Speaker 1:And should we maybe put it in a different account to hold it for a rainy day. What are your thoughts? Kind of around there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think you have to look at the big picture of all of your deposits, right? So not just this example, but if you in a cashier plan, what I ask people to do is line up their deposits in columns, like with every single month, so you can see in January I'm getting $10,000 worth of deposits. In February I'm getting 15. In March I'm getting 20. In April I'm getting zero, right, because one singular wedding, like whether you're receiving the cash now and the rest of it later.
Speaker 2:You have to look at the big picture and see what's happening, right, and in your business cash for small businesses, actually businesses of most sizes. That's what matters, Even if you're realizing the event, like 12 months later. It's that cash flow that is ongoing. You're in a cycle. You're always going to have deposits that you're receiving further out before.
Speaker 2:If you have product in your business, you do need to make sure that you have a product saved, like a floral business, if you need to be saving a third of that for weddings, that you need to make sure that you have enough cash saved to pay for all of your floral orders through the summer, right? So to kind of make it with a wedding planning business excuse me, with a wedding planning business you don't have to save the cash for the wedding for the most part, as long as you're kind of covering your costs Maybe it's staffing and things like that, and usually that's second one but with a cash flow plan you can line up all those payments and you can see in terms of accounting whether you record the sale when you receive the cash or when the event happens. That's just an accounting transaction.
Speaker 1:And there's something that you had said earlier that kind of stuck with me and I think helps in this situation. If you're sneezing, bless you, you're fine. So is changing your deposits. So maybe if they're booking in the summer, you're taking a higher deposit. Yes, Especially weddings happening in a higher season, to kind of even out the way things are. So, instead of just putting a flat rate deposit on everything you do, just getting more creative around that so that again your cash flow is more consistent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for two reasons. For planning, I don't love the two payment method, to be quite honest, for two reasons. One, you get this huge payment in the beginning and huge payment at the end, and then you may be cash flow poor in the middle, especially if your season in the north really lines up to engagements in the fall. And then what happens in the spring in terms of cash coming in. So that's one reason to spread out your payments to three or four payments. The other reason is to protect yourself.
Speaker 2:We all learned during COVID that, as a wedding planner, you are delivering on a lot of different milestones throughout the process, right, and you're waiting to receive 50% out at 30 days before. You've probably delivered, at that point, 90% of the wedding and you haven't received 90% of the money. You've probably you've only received 50% of the money, right? So I would encourage people to be thinking about the work that they're delivering and creating a milestone schedule, right? So it's going to be four payments and at these four payment dates, we will have met these four milestones in the planning period, right, and it doesn't need to be 25, 25, 25, 25. Like it can be. You know 30, 40,. You know 2010,.
Speaker 2:Right, like you can kind of split it up yeah, based on the work that you're delivering right In other industries. That's how you would do it right, like if you were in construction or I just got a roof installed in my house. Like they are asking me to pay them as they're hitting certain milestones within that installation in terms of you know, materials and in terms of labor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I'm going through every now, and right now too, same thing.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely, I can relate.
Speaker 1:Awful. Yeah, I know, right now we're in my bedroom. You don't know that because this is my office corner. Oh, no Building an office. So soon enough it'll be like this beautiful light background with natural light and you know very exciting. But I will be making lots of deposits between the house and yes, exactly. Right, yeah, this is like oh, I'm loving this. Okay, and then what about economic shifts? So you know, there's been a lot of that for the last few years?
Speaker 1:Yes, and especially I mean us in Florida, and I think honestly this is something to think about throughout the whole country. Economic shifts might be like oh, we're in a you know, quote unquote recession, or COVID, I think, was a huge help. You know that was an economic shift and also the weather events that have been happening oh, yes, we're dealing with a storm.
Speaker 1:Yes, michelle and I, we're hoping our internet holds out for the rest of this call, but the you know we had Irma come through and that was a huge issue and definitely hit our economy. So when you're thinking economic shifts, I just want the listeners to think like all the things that could possibly have anything cause that. Yeah, how can we prepare for these unversing events?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, to piggyback on what we were just talking about, I mean, a cashier plan is really going to help you because, again, you can see what's happening over the next year. I think that, as business owners, we're so scared sometimes of taking risks because we're going to, like, lose money or not make money, or we can't see the road ahead of us. And really, does, you know, force you or gives you the ability to have that foresight and you can say, okay, I know that you know if I'm saving, you know, 5% every single month, so that I have a little nest egg for any highs and lows. And then at the end of January where I think people are maybe a little bit more nervous at the end of this year or in the summer, maybe they're not booking as much you can kind of see like, oh, that cash has accrued. By then you're able to see that, beyond financial though because I think a lot of times people are thinking of these issues from like a financial lens, like, okay, I'm going to get my ducks in a row, I'm going to get myself financially organized, I'm going to cash a plan, I'm going to save the money, I'm going to, you know, do all those things and you should. This is my job.
Speaker 2:I, I, I strategize with people on this, but the other side of it is the marketing and the sale side of it. Right. So, like numbers on a paper don't mean anything. Like, if you don't have a marketing strategy behind, if you don't have an operational strategy, like that numbers only can get you so far, right. So the types of people have you know, they come to me, they're like Michelle, I'm not making enough money. And it's like, well, you have a marketing problem, not a financial problem, okay. So? So think about that a little bit. Like, what are you doing to market your business?
Speaker 2:And it's not just the, the beautiful website, which is important, and it's not just the Instagram which is important. It is really about relationships and making sure that you're meeting people and nurturing those relationships. And the visibility that we were talking about at the beginning, like that is going to get you through an economic downturn. At the end of the day, like, yes, have your savings, have all those other things. Those are cushions, okay, but the relationships are going to get you through a downturn. I had a business in 2007, 2008, 2009, if, and if wasn't for those relationships that I had at that time. You know it would have been impossible, because who are you gonna refer business to when you don't have that much business yourself? You're going to refer to the people that you see in the know and you trust.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. This is like again. This is exactly what I teach on, because what happens is I see so many businesses. They build the website or what they have, like you're saying. They have the Instagram, but they don't do a lot with it, they don't keep it up and if I build it, they will come. Yeah, why am I not on the worst question you could ask somebody why am I not on your vendor list?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, who are you? You know you're asking me, know, so it's with the, build it and they will come as, like doesn't work. You really need to get out there and tell them what they do, and not only that, but do it in a way that is like a mutually beneficial relationship with the other vendors. You know like, oh, I would love to work with you and be on your vendor list, of course, but it's really important to me that I deliver something to you too. What is that?
Speaker 2:How can I bring you business, how can I bring you? Like and I know a lot of times people are like, well, you know I'm a stationary designer Like it's hard for me to bring business to a planner and it's like, but you can bring other things. You could connect planners to venues. You can connect, you know. Like, you can be a, you can provide thank you notes for that planner. Like, what is it that you're going to? You know offer, you know to make you more interesting and attractive and friendly and collaborative. You know there's the adage of like givers gain, right. So, like, the more you give, it will come back to you. And so if you're approaching, you know relationship building as a giving thing, as a supporting, I want to support my community, right? Like, how are you going to support your community? Are you, you know, showing up at industry events? And like volunteering and saying, hey, do you need help sitting at the registration table? I would love to do that for you. Like, those kinds of things go so far and give you so much visibility.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, you're at the registration desk. You literally get to say to everybody yeah, or do you need a?
Speaker 2:reader Do you need someone to warm up guests? Or like, if you're introverted, it could be other things, like if you're a photographer, like can I do headshots for the event, right? Like there's so many ways that you can give. And let me tell you those are the people that get noticed and get business time and time again.
Speaker 1:This is so good. Yes, I'm actually working with a stationery artist. She's not even here, she's in Ohio. I'm doing a workshop with her this whole fair in January, so probably around the time this airs. Her name is Christy Townsend. She's the paper vow.
Speaker 2:She is. I had a feeling you were gonna say it's her, I love her. She was a client of mine. We wrote a business plan like 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:Oh, I can't wait to chat with her about this, christy.
Speaker 2:She's wonderful. Hi, christy, I hope you're listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so she's making wax seals for me, just spinning out End of the year they can do things like that, and then I'll be up there for her workshop oh that's so great. Yeah, really exciting. It really is a small world. I was like Michelle, I didn't know you were in Miami and then all these other things came out of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. Are there any other additional tips or anything else?
Speaker 1:that you wanna add before we go into some fun Q&A. Oh my gosh yeah.
Speaker 2:I think people are tired and that's okay. I'm talking a lot about you have to hustle. Let me tell you I'm having a hard time being on the hustle train this time of year, right around the holidays, so I totally get it. Take a break, rest. This is really important. Don't keep trying to go 110% when you are depleted, but really when you're really tired you have to go 110% when you are depleted, but really when you rest, take that time off. Don't be scrolling, Don't take the time off the computer, all of that. Give yourself a day, a two days If you have time around the holidays, if you're listening. After try to find a weekend, but when you come back, put your energy into these things. So the rest is really important. So you have the energy to be visible and build those relationships, because building those relationships requires the energy. So rest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you don't have the energy and, like you're saying, holiday time can be we're out shopping, we're seeing family members and it can be very exhausting just taking all the rounds, let alone getting in the networking space If you don't have the energy. So marketing number one is going to be word of mouth, but number two is email marketing. So put all your vendors on an email list and just let them know that they're on the list, and the best thing about it is that they're sending us emails like hey, I'm wishing you the merriest of Christmases.
Speaker 2:Here's our latest blog post. We can't wait to see it, just so that you're on their mind. Yes, yes, have a hit list of your 50 favorite people and, even more important, than emailing them on an email list, email them that has so much value, and just check it and say hey, how's your daughter doing?
Speaker 1:I'm just going to send her some Q&A.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:I thought we haven't been doing Q&A. I always thought it was funny that it was like oh, we're going to do rapid fire questions Like I don't just like throw them at you.
Speaker 2:It's just kind of a funny portion. Oh my gosh, I've had the rapid fire questions in a podcast. I'm like, oh my God, I require so much time to think.
Speaker 1:So I appreciate it Like how fast are we talking? No, we don't have to be fast at all, it doesn't matter to me. Okay, what is the last thing you bought for your business?
Speaker 2:So because I'm a service business, I don't buy that many things, right, I have to think about this a little bit. So I bought a ticket to emerge. I'm not sure, are you familiar with the emerge events? Yeah, so they were just down here in South Florida, they were up in Boca, I guess, yeah, and it was fantastic. So, yeah, that was the last thing I bought.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was like a blast.
Speaker 2:It was really fun.
Speaker 1:It was fun, just great.
Speaker 2:I forget who I was following on.
Speaker 1:Instagram, but I was like, whoa, this is awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great people, great conversations, really nice collaborative, like just great beautiful yeah.
Speaker 1:Love it, and then what is something that you do to treat yourself? So we talk about the hustle, yeah, yeah, what's on the in between?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I am a firm believer that, like, the taking care of yourself is not like the once a month or once a quarter spa treatment. I mean I think those things are nice, but like I really think people need to think about this. Like, what is the daily thing that you could do? That you're really communicating, you know committing to resting and recovering and letting go and getting out of your workhead. And for me that's reading. Like I have to read at night, every single night before I go to bed. Has to be fiction, has to be a book. Like I need to be able to turn the pages. I love Netflix too. That's a great escape as well, but there really is something about like turning pages and just escaping in a book and it really cleanses my mind. So that to me, is like the daily treat. And then the occasional treat that I like that's a little bit different is I love a float spa.
Speaker 2:Have you ever been to a float spa or heard of a float spa? How less. You basically go like it's like a just a big tub with like tons of epsom salt and you float and it's like like a chamber, it's like a pod and it's dark in there. You can choose if you want. Like mood music, it's very meditative, but like you, totally like go everything. If you have any like little ache in your body, it's totally like it comes out to me. I'm more relaxed longer after a float than I am after your massage, because it lasts longer. Wow, oh, we're gonna have to look. It's amazing they don't have it in Miami. By the way, I have to drive up to Fort Lauderdale Just gonna say I'm like, I'm like, I'm the key.
Speaker 2:I know you're gonna have to drive all the way up there. We'll go, sometimes after a whip of meeting.
Speaker 1:We're gonna do yeah, we're gonna have a date. It'd be great.
Speaker 2:We're gonna go float after with a meeting. Yeah, let's do it. My husband's gonna say what are you?
Speaker 1:doing. I'm going floating with a friend. I mean we do that here, it's just a little different. Yeah, it's in the ocean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Like most people are like why wouldn't you just go in the pool? I'm like you have to always different, different you know that I don't have to hear my neighbor's dogs and the we actually just invested in a purple mattress and like the oh beds. Oh, that's so nice.
Speaker 1:You know, and we were actually going up to get a bed set, we went up to Daytona area because they have like it's like the auto mall, where it's like several places in a row and then they have, like when that's furniture row, and so we went up there and we went up to get a bed like an actual like dresser bed frame, all that. We didn't get any of that. We ended up getting the mattress and I was like this is for our health, I don't even care about that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. So we are still without a new bed set, but the bed is like, oh nice, so much, so much more worth it, and just that alone was such a great investment. And that's something like every single day. What are you doing Like you need to have great sleep? So, yeah, okay, this is my favorite question that I ask everybody, and it's if we were that we are okay In one year, you and I, what's? Today, the 15th, we're going to be pre-float popping a model of champagne to celebrate something for you. What is that thing?
Speaker 2:Yes, so in 2024, BCH consulting turns 15. And I will also celebrate 20 years in this industry which I feel like I'm too young to be able to claim those days. Oh, I love it though. So, yes, I'm really excited. So that is what we would be celebrating 15 years of consulting and then 20 years in this industry.
Speaker 1:Fabulous, that's definitely we'll have to do it, let's do it, let's bottle that day. And, michelle, where can our guests find you, connect with you and if there's anything else coming up you want to share, feel free.
Speaker 2:Yes, so they can find me on Instagram at bsage, b-e-s-a-g-e always, and then on my website if you want to download that free business plan on my homepage, it's bsageconsultingcom. And something that I'm really excited about that's coming up as the BCH conference. It's going to be in San Miguel de Ayenda, that's in Mexico, february 26th to the 29th, and really excited to learn about how to self-publish a book, how to create personal wealth, including retirement planning. Also, how to be thinking of your business today to possibly sell it someday. So those are some of the topics we're going to have there.
Speaker 1:I love it, everybody to come. Yeah, yeah. These are topics that are definitely on the mind, but nobody talks about them. So go to Mexico, drink a margarita and soak in all of the amazing education that you'll have.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can learn more about that at bsageconferencecom.
Speaker 1:Perfect, I'll drop all the info down in the show notes and, michelle, thank you just endlessly for being on. This was so much fun, thank you, Karen and I cannot wait to finally after all this time connect with you in person.
Speaker 2:Yes, we'll do it. We'll do that very soon. Sounds good. Thanks, Karen, for having me.