Candice (00:10.51)

I have a confession to make, in the last year I have spent about $60,000 on my own education and personal business development.

Yeah, you heard that right. A lot of big investments. I've invested in courses, masterminds, one-on-one coaching, all of it to help me in my business, which ultimately trickles down to help you. And today, I wanted to pull back the curtain a little bit and share more about what I've learned in this very expensive, but what I do think is very worth it journey in my own education. What I've learned about the different types of investments that I've made.

and how they've served me and ultimately how they might be able to serve you at your stage of business. I'm also going to be sharing what investments I think are best depending on what type of growth you're looking for in your business. So we're having a big conversation today about education, the pros, the cons, what to look out for, red flags, how to know if you're ready. And yeah, I'm going to spill a little tea on my experience over the last year.

Candice (01:22.286)

Hey there friend, welcome back to the Power and Purpose podcast. It's me, your host Candace. And as you heard at the top of the episode, we're talking all about my journey in education and also some reflections and insights and a little bit of coaching for you on your journey of business development and growth. Saying that number out loud, $60,000, I was doing the math before I obviously started recording today's episode in my notes. And I'm like, wow.

That's a lot of money. And you know, somebody might hear that number and think I'm absolutely crazy. That's okay. Somebody might hear that number and think that that's not crazy. And that's okay. It's what works for me at my stage in business. And to have to give you a confession, I absolutely love investing in coaching and support. I love being surrounded and learning from someone about how to even make small tweaks in my business to be more efficient.

I love working on myself so that I can show up better for my students and show up better in my life. I absolutely love investing in education. And over the last year, I've made some pretty sizable investments. I really took a risk and I also bet on myself over the last year. And I have to tell you, not every investment necessarily gave me what I wanted, but I will say every investment that I made.

Definitely taught me something and there were some specific investments that really have completely transformed my approach in business and been so incredibly valuable and Continue to be valuable, which is the power of coaching now. I've had a business coach since I think 2017 I would say maybe 2018 and I've worked with my coach for ever since for seven years

It has been so rewarding and she's helped me so much to develop my podcast and to create everything that you see here and inside my business, inside my world. She's been an integral part. And so I'm no stranger to coaching. And I truly believe that coaching not only helped me get my business to where it is today, but it has also just made me a better business owner hands down. Absolutely.

Candice (03:34.766)

And over the last year, I have, like I mentioned, made a sizable investments. I invested in some courses and those gave me some skills that I was lacking and better understanding about things. I invested in a paid ads course. I invested in an AI course. I invested in a webinar course. So I've taken a couple of courses which have helped me sharpen certain areas of my business and helped me to learn. I've also done some one-on-one coaching.

And that really helped to give me some more tailored strategies. And it's been very good for mindset for me. You know, I struggle with some of the same imposter syndrome and some of the same things that everybody out there struggles with. so to have a mindset coach and to have somebody there who can help me understand some of the patterns or why I might do certain things or how to break through patterns that are limiting me has been so great. And I've also joined several masterminds.

which helps to accelerate certain aspects of my business. Each mastermind that I joined served a different purpose and each one had a different leader and different women and people inside of it. And they were all places where I was able to access the thought leader and get their eyes on my business while also having community with other people who were in the mastermind.

And most of them taught frameworks, which I'll talk about in a few minutes of why most masterminds are really frameworks that you learn alongside others. They all taught me different frameworks which were extremely valuable to me from copywriting to business development to developing new products, my webinars, sales. So it's been really such a great journey.

One thing I have to tell you is making all these investments at the time, it was extremely scary for me. I had the cash to do it, but the thought of spending the money felt really risky. But each investment helped me to develop a certain aspect of my business. And I can look back now and feel very grateful that I decided to take the risk and to bet on myself.

Candice (05:52.376)

So what I would love to do is take this experience that I've had and also my experience as an educator, as somebody who has courses, as somebody who's done one-on-one coaching, who has a mastermind, a membership. I have these things in my business. I've also been a patron of all of these things. What I'd really love to do is support you in understanding what each of these things are and what you should tap into.

based on what you need in your business right now. So whether you need a course, you need one-on-one coaching, a mastermind, a membership, so that you can look at what's available, your options, including what I have available, and make a decision about what feels right to you based on where you want to grow. And so I want you to think of this like an honest buyer's guide. I'm kind of like the Consumer Reports of business education and kind of a

giving you an understanding of what each format does. So let's talk about that for a little bit. Let's talk about courses first, because I think everybody is familiar with buying courses. You've likely bought at least one type of course in your journey as an entrepreneur. And courses are great for foundational skills. And let me tell you something, no matter how long you've been in business, you need to continue to learn foundational skills, okay? The business changes, the market changes. There's new techniques and strategies.

And so courses are great when you have a specific goal that you're trying to achieve and you're looking to learn how to do that and invest in a framework or a method or a strategy to do that goal from somebody who has mastered it. And you also want quick implementation courses on social media strategy, courses on starting a business courses on growing your team.

Those topics are great for courses because you learn a framework by somebody who has mastered it. And it is delivered in such a way where learning and implementation are baked into the program. Now, these are usually lower cost than some of your one-on-one investments, your mastermind investments. They are also typically self-paced, although you can be live with the instructor depending on the course and when it's launched.

Candice (08:19.414)

And it's great when you're a beginner in something or you're advancing from beginner to advanced in a very specific topic. It's when you need to learn the thing, right? And courses have been tremendous in helping me learn how to build a course. It's like a course and a course and a course. It's been helpful for so many different things, learning ads, learning courses, learning about Instagram bots, all things that I've invested in over the years.

Now the downside to a course is depending on where you're at in business is there's typically limited support and you're often on your own for accountability. And you may not be able to get the instructor's full view on your business, especially if it's a large course with lots of students. There's usually a little bit of a barrier between you and the instructor. So that's just something to consider. But to sit down and to get really, really good at one specific thing in your business, courses are a great entry point to that.

Next up is one-on-one coaching. And this is something that I did for many years prior to selling my business. And one-on-one coaching is fantastic for personalized strategy. And what I would suggest is finding a coach who specializes in one thing that you are looking to get personalized strategy on. It's also really great when you have some sensitive challenges in your business or circumstances that maybe aren't often addressed by a course or the courses out there.

just are not tailored to what you might need. A one-on-one coaching is great too when you really want a thought partner, you want somebody who is going to help you think bigger, help you see outside your scope of view or your worldview and bring a lot of experience to the conversation. Now there are different types of coaches and I don't mean like mindset coaches, strategy coaches, business coaches.

There are coaches that will literally tell you exactly what to do and expect you to follow their instructions. And then there are coaches who will help you uncover the answers to your questions yourself. And they act more like a guide rather than a college professor or an instructor. I personally like a hybrid of both.

Candice (10:42.882)

And I've been really fortunate to have coaches who do both for me. And I try to be a hybrid of both for the women that I mentor in any program. As a coach across my programs, I try to be a hybrid of both. There's something really powerful about helping someone arrive at a decision for themselves. And a good coach will know when you need.

coaching to do that or when you just need the instructions manual when you need them to cut through all the BS and be like do X Y and Z and then come back to me and tell me how it went and So this is a thought partner who's gonna really get to know your business and support you in Whatever it is you sought out for coaching one-on-one coaching is great when you want to go deep on a specific topic or you want a long-term relationship where you can

Go foundational aspect by foundational aspect and get your business in a better direction. I often coached one-on-one helping mostly startups get started over a year. Very rewarding and gratifying for me. And I know all the women I coached through those early programs really benefited from having me as a guide and cutting through all the mistakes and helping to fast track their success.

Now a traditional mastermind is kind of like taking a course and supercharging it in an intimate community. And let me explain. think people have kind of mixed up what a mastermind really is, myself included, because my mastermind is definitely unique. But I want you to think of a mastermind as if you're joining an intimate coaching program with a group of like-minded entrepreneurs. And the coach is typically taking you through a framework.

that they teach within the mastermind. And it can be frameworks. They might spend a month talking about social, then they might spend another month talking about systems. And it is for a certain period of time. And then usually after the cohort ends and you've worked through the framework, the mastermind itself ends. So you can see you're learning a framework, but you're learning it in a very intimate environment. And you have

Candice (13:00.14)

group learning, is really powerful. And gosh, I just have to tell you that if you've ever been nervous about joining a group, you're missing out on so much community knowledge, shared knowledge. Being in a mastermind and amongst a group of driven people is instantly going to make you more motivated, more driven.

more excited to dig into things. If you've been feeling a little in your business, we've been talking about this, right? I mean, the same season over and over again, last week I talked about ceilings and one of those ceilings is kind of feeling not as creative, joining a group of people with energy and you've got your thought leader there. It's a great way to build momentum. And I'll tell you, you might think, what do I have to learn from somebody who's in the same?

you know, sinking boat as me. You couldn't be more wrong about that. Wow. I learned so much from the women inside the masterminds that I've been in recently. I remember walking into my in-person experience with Amy Porterfield in that mastermind and meeting the women for the very first time. And I felt like I was the smallest fish in the room. And it really humbled me.

And that is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be the least smart, the person making the least amount of money. I wanted that environment because growth happens in that environment. And I learned so much from those ladies who really bonded. And they taught me so much. And I do believe that I was able to add to that too. I think I'm...

together, I think I'm pretty smart. So if you have hesitated joining a mastermind, or if you think that there's not value in being able to talk amongst your peers, you're absolutely wrong. A mastermind is also gonna provide accountability, exposure to other people's ideas, their problems and solutions. If you have ever...

Candice (15:21.144)

had a coaching call, if you've ever gone to, let's say you're in a membership, let's say you're one of my students in Planner's playbook, and you've never asked a question on the call, or you're nervous about asking a question, you're not sure what question to ask, getting on a call and listening to the questions being asked and the advice being given, it always applies to you. And some of my best ideas and shifts and pivots and changes have come from listening to other people, not my direct feedback from my coach.

but listening to other people. So a mastermind, you're typically joining it to follow a framework that you are interested in implementing. You're taught the framework. It typically is maybe a couple of weeks, 90 days, maybe six months, could even be a year, but there is a time limit on it. And you're amongst a group of people learning the same framework, struggling with the same challenges.

from all over the wedding industry typically. Now the downside to a mastermind is sometimes it can be overwhelming if you're not ready to implement or if you're too early in your journey. And I didn't mention the downside for one-to-one coaching. let me also tell you that one-on-one coaching can be very expensive. You know, I'd probably charge $20,000 to coach somebody one-on-one at this stage in my career.

It can be very expensive depending on the coach that you're hiring. I would be wary of anything that's too cheap, just saying. But it is expensive. And there's a loneliness element to it without community. And it's really only as good as the coach's availability and their skill set. So just keep that

Now I have a hybrid of some of these items inside WPI, my mastermind for women in the wedding industry. You hear me talk about this on the podcast all the time. I'm not the only person who has a hybrid program, but I can't speak to other programs out there. All I can tell you is what my program is like and why I created it as a hybrid. So I designed WPI to be a hybrid between one-on-one coaching and a mastermind experience. Now it didn't.

Candice (17:42.03)

fully start this way. started as a mastermind with a framework, but it eventually developed a one-on-one coaching aspect because that's what my people, my ladies needed. They needed more access to me. So I provided it and increased the price and increased the experience. And it's been such a wonderful container for women in the wedding industry. It's been going since 2019, October.

and we're October 20, 25, so six years. Now inside you get one-on-one coaching from me, so you get that personalized guidance. Plus you get the group mastermind model and that's community, accountability, shared strategy. We go through frameworks and we do it more in a group call setting where we come together and we implement things in our business.

For instance, we just did a fall funnel audit inside the mastermind and I brought the ladies together and we audited their sales funnel. looked at data and metrics. created a custom GPT for them to run those numbers through. And what we were looking for is where are you strong in your sales process? Where do you have some leaky buckets and how can we fill those holes and make those buckets stronger before engagement season?

We do a lot of things like that inside the mastermind from financial planning to goal setting to marketing. We, I love our workshop series. In fact, one of the women just boxed me and said, Candice, can't tell you how much I love this. It really helps me to put my eyes on my business and in ways that I would have never thought and maybe didn't make the time for. So we do follow frameworks and each month we typically have a theme and we're

focused on things that are happening in everyone's business. And inside WPI, you get that a crazy awesome community perspective where you have women who are scaling to six figures, above six figures. You've got women from all over the world in different businesses, photography, invitation design. Of course, we have a good number of planners, which for all my non planners out there, boy, I think every photographer, invitation designer,

Candice (20:01.142)

dessert artist in our group, florist. We even have service providers and educators who join WPI. They all learn so much from listening to the planners. Because think about it, you have luxury planners where you can literally on a call say, hey, I wanna charm this luxury planner and my area and have her send me her clients, what should I?

do. And you get advice from our amazing members, which is great. So this is a shared strategy in WPI, but you have unprecedented unprecedented access to me as your coach through Voxer, which is a voice and texting app that we use, and also one on one calls along with group calls where we all talk and my eyes are on your business. I'm really able to develop a relationship with each woman inside the mastermind.

And I think they would tell you that I make them feel as though they're really the only person in my Voxer channel or on my calendar that day. I have a good ability of being able to remember where everyone's at, support what everyone needs and make everybody feel seen and valued, which sometimes in a group experience, that's really difficult for a coach to do. And I've experienced that firsthand and it's kind of a bummer.

I know that, so I do my very best. And I'm also extremely invested in everyone and very curious and wanting to help and wanting to be in the issue you're having with another vendor or this lead that we're chasing or this great opportunity we're after. I love being that invested and I really am. mean, my day to day is thinking about these women, their businesses, their problems, their challenges and how I can be a solution and a resource and a guide for them.

So that's the difference between those models. And what I'd love to share with you are a few decision filters that you can ask yourself these questions, and they can guide you towards maybe the best resource for where you're at in your business right now. We're coming up on engagement season, fall, winter. And this is often the time where programs are released, availability in programs or courses.

Candice (22:20.832)

is open and this is learning season for most wedding pros. So this is going to come in really handy. If you're in a learn stage about a specific topic, I would tell you to see if there's a course available for that before you look at any other option. So if you want to learn how to create reels or you want to learn a certain system in your business, it's best that you grab a course for that as a baseline that you can build off of. If you're in the market for custom strategy,

then one-on-one coaching or something that offers very intimate one-on-one coaching is probably the best fit for you. Let's say that you want to reimagine your business. Let's say that you want to shift markets. Let's say that you want to move your business. You want to grow a team or you're trying to up level. One-on-one coaching is going to be really what you need to focus on.

If you're in a growth or acceleration stage and you want a framework to implement fast and you want to learn from someone who is a boss at what they're teaching and you want to be surrounded by community, a mastermind is a really great fit for you. You're going to learn the corner, a core framework. You're going to have support to implement it and any challenges, questions that arise plus the greater

supportive of community who are also doing the same thing. And if you're a high achiever who wants strategy, accountability, and a network, so you want one-on-one, you want to learn frameworks for your business, and you want community, I would say WPI is going to be a great fit for you or a hybrid mastermind coaching program.

So now that you have a sense of what each type of education is and how it might fit into your business, and maybe you're thinking a mastermind sounds like the accelerator you need, I want to kind of take you a few steps deeper. I have coached hundreds, thousands of wedding pros, thousands of people. And one on one, I've coached hundreds. Planners, photographers, florists, designers, rental companies, stationers.

Candice (24:36.938)

You name it, I have coached pretty much everybody. Masterminds can change your business in months. Joining a mastermind coaching program like WPI, it can change your business in months, in weeks, not years. And I've seen women go from stuck to scaling their business in just a few months, if not just a few weeks.

But I've also seen people join programs at the wrong time and feel kind of like, ugh, about it. And I don't want that for you. I want you in the first camp, the camp that squeezes every ounce of ROI from the room that you're sitting in. And so let's first get super clear about some of the tests, the ROI tests that

you should consider before you join any kind of mastermind coaching program or of course WPI. And I've mapped out these seven tests that you can run on yourself before you fill out an application or God forbid, put any money down. And if you pass most of these, a mastermind is going to pay off for you in a big way. And if not, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. It just means that you might want to start with something different and then

move into the opportunity of a mastermind. So let's do the seven ROI tests that you can run your business through before you join any type of coaching program. Okay. The first test is the bottleneck test. been speaking about ceilings last week in bottlenecks. And my question for you is, are you the ceiling? If your growth is capped by you, if

your decision fatigue, your calendar, your, I'll figure it out later. You're going to get a lot of ROI from being in a room that breaks your patterns. When you join WPI, you really have no choice but to show up in that experience. And it's designed to give you momentum and to get you out of your head. Masterminds, create leverage. They're your leverage points. You make faster decisions.

Candice (26:58.016)

You share ideas and mistakes or things that worked well, and you create deadlines when you're working with a coach that you, you meet. mean, I'm going to say to you, so you're going to have that to me next week, right? And you think, yes, I'll have that to you next week. So if you are the bottleneck, if you are the ceiling of your business, that is a good indication that a mastermind coaching program is going to support you.

The next test is the demand test. And the question here is, is there already demand that you can't fully capture in your business? Think about it like this. Do you have a wait list of people that you're getting back to? Inquiries you're slow to respond to. Maybe you've been invited to participate in opportunities, speaking opportunities, styled shoot opportunities that you say no to.

Maybe there are things you want to do that you haven't just figured out how to package yet. This is where a mastermind turns like I'm almost ready. I'm almost booked into actually I'm booked. My systems are working. I'm meeting the demand, maybe growing my team to meet that demand. So if there's demand in your business, you're in demand. Maybe you'd like to be even more in demand, but

The truth is that you are having a hard time keeping all the plates spinning. A mastermind or a coaching program is going to be really great for you. And the goal in that container should be to help you find better solutions to your systems and how you can meet the demand that you're receiving in your brand.

The next test is the offer clarity test. And the question that you need to ask yourself here is, you explain your core offers of what you do in one sentence, in one breath? If your services, your offers, your products exist, but they feel fuzzy, they feel like I can't quite explain what I do, you're actually an ideal candidate for a mastermind. Group coaching helps to pressure test things.

Candice (29:16.012)

like positioning, pricing, and how you deliver that. And what you're going to find is that you learn from somebody in the wedding industry, but completely different niche, or a photographer learning from a planner, an invitation designer learning from a photographer how to position yourself smartly. And of course, you have the coach there to coach you too. And this means that you can stop selling work and you can start selling outcomes.

You're in the business of creating outcomes for your clients. And so if you are not clear on what you do and you want more clarity around your services, your products, offers, coaching in a mastermind is going to, I think, instantly create clarity for you. And imagine what your business will feel like when you're clear about who you are, what you do, what you provide and what it costs. mean, just imagine.

that clarity. The next test is the visibility test. And the question that you need to ask yourself here is, do people know you exist?

They know you exist, but do they not know why you're different? If your brand is present, but it's not positioned correctly, you're going to pull a ton of value from strategy with your coach, hot seats, which is what we do. And it's essentially small group coaching calls where you're on a call with six, up to six other women. And everybody comes with a question.

And I pour into each person, but then the group also pours in where they can be of value. And borrow belief, which is borrowing someone's strategies and beliefs and implementing them in your business. Masterminds sharpen your point of view. And in this instance, in the visibility test, people know you exist, but they don't know why you're different. You're going to learn how to get seen as the choice, not

Candice (31:22.118)

a choice. And boy, what a difference there. How to get seen as the choice, not a choice. And I have to tell you, having mentored hundreds of women and looked at their business front to back, most wedding pros position themselves as a choice, as a nice choice, but not the choice. And in today's marketplace, visibility is

everything. We need a whole separate podcast episode on that. Okay. Fifth test, the accountability test. And the question here that you have to ask yourself is, do you hit goals when someone's watching? If you thrive with check-ins, milestones, and a coach who let, which is me, who is going to side eye you or like what I like to say lovingly,

shank and cuddle you. Your excuses, the shank and cuddle is a loving, it's lovingly, I'm lovingly, you know, stabbing you with the truth, but I'm doing it in a warm embrace. A mastermind coaching is going to be a great fit for you. It's hard to keep, self accountability is very difficult. And I'll tell you something, high performing women,

have a lot of self-accountability. But six-figure businesses, and as your business grows, it becomes harder and harder to hold yourself accountable, right? You've got more to be responsible for, more slips through the cracks. You have more work on your plate, so I'll do that later, or I'll get to that soon. You take your ideas, your big dreams, your hopes, your goals, and you put them over here because you're so busy.

When you join something and when you're paying for something, you start paying attention to your business and accountability should be baked into these programs. They're baked into mine and ROI shows up when I'm saying to you, Hey, listen, you said this matter to you. You wanted to do this. So where is it girl? Where's the thing you said you were going to show this to me. So

Candice (33:43.214)

Where is it? We all need a little bit of that. It's not like you want to be somebody's employee. You don't need a boss. But you do need somebody holding your feet to the fire and reminding you why you joined this program, what you want with your business, and challenging you a little bit. The sixth test is an energy test. And boy, this is important. The question you have to ask yourself before you join any of these programs is, do I have the capacity to implement maybe three, two to three?

high impact moves in my business in the next 90 days? Do you have the capacity to implement three, maybe just two high impact moves in my business in the next 90 days? You don't need 20 hours a week to be a part of a program. And any program that's commanding that much of your time sounds more like an accelerator or a framework that you're learning. So it's a little bit different.

You need focus blocks of time to execute what you want to map out and what you'll map out with your coach or me if you join WPI. And if you can carve out that implementation time, masterminds are going to pay you back fast. What you're going to find is whatever your investment is, you make that investment back.

I mean, I just did that in the last 30 days for a mastermind that I invested in. I went to that mastermind to solve a problem. I solved the problem. And guess what? I made back the entire year worth of the investment in six weeks.

what it's supposed to do. Now granted, results may vary. Results may vary, okay? And I went in there on a mission and I was, I know how this works. Like I'm not paying all this money and not doing what I say I'm going to do. So I went in there on a mission and I followed what she told me and I did what she told me to do. I was like, I am not going to deviate. And everything she told me to do was right.

Candice (35:36.482)

which hello, I love that. But results can vary here. What I want you to know is that if you can carve out implementation time here in a mastermind in a one-to-one coaching, you are going to see results. It's just like when you go to the gym, if you make the effort to go and work out at the gym or in an exercise program two to three times a week, guess what's gonna happen? In 90 days, you're gonna be stronger, you're gonna have advancement in your weights, and you're gonna...

be able to, you're going to physically see the results. You're going to start to see your muscles pop. You might've lost a little bit of weight. Your shape might be changing, recomposition. Same can be said when you put the energy into making those changes. Final test here, test number seven, the coachability test. My question to you is, are you willing to try the non-obvious move?

When you join a coaching program, when you hire a coach, when you join a mastermind, you have to put aside how you think something should be done. Because if your way worked, would you be here?

Would you be here? Probably not. So it's important that you be open to coaching. What I just told you about my experience and my ROI in six weeks was because I'm coachable. I ask questions and I trust what my coach is telling me because I did my research and I made sure I hired somebody who knows what they're talking about. And I know that I don't know everything. Even as a coach, there's things that I don't know.

There's also things in my business that I can't see because I can't see the outside of things. I can only see the inside. So I follow what my coach says. You have to be very open to letting your coach lead you and support you in making decisions. When you invest in these things, I'll tell you the people who make the most progress

Candice (37:50.762)

are humble and they are decisive in their implementation. They come to it and say, you tell me you're the expert. I want to listen to everybody's ideas, but then they don't get stuck in this world. They recognize I'm here for a limited period of time. I want to make the most out of this. So I have no choice but to implement. if you can hear direct feedback, if you don't mind being tested or challenged,

And you are ready to implement. You're going to print wins in your business and inside that experience, you're going to print wins. So before you make an investment, ask yourself, am I the ceiling? Do the bottleneck test. Then ask, is there already demand, but maybe I just can't fully capture it all. That's the demand test. Can you explain what you do in one sentence? That's the offer clarity test.

Do people know you exist, but maybe they don't know why you're different? Are you seen as the choice or a choice? That's the visibility test. Accountability test is, do you hit goals when someone's watching? If you crave accountability, you need some. You need some. Now, do you have the capacity to implement three, two to three high impact moves in the next 90 days?

Energy is really important. You have to be in it. And the last thing you want to do is join something and not show up for it. That's a shame. And that's on you. That's never on the coach unless they totally suck and nobody's getting anything out of it. But if you're not showing up for something, that's a you problem, not the coach's problem. Let me tell you, a coach is not a babysitter. I'm not your business partner and I'm not your babysitter. I'm not your parent. You're an adult with a business.

And just like as a planner, I hated running after vendors trying to chase them down for their quotes and to get back to me and to pay attention to the business I'm sending them and to do a good job. I equally get frustrated when I have to chase down somebody I'm mentoring. So you have to put the work in and that's up to you to decide if you have the energy to do it. And final test. Are you willing to try the non-obvious move that shows that your coach, your coachable.

Candice (40:15.98)

Now I've given you some signs that you're ready, but let's talk about when you should wait. I don't think that you should be investing in a high cost program. If you are at the kind of pre-offer or pre-revenue stage, if you're still deciding on what you sell, who you serve, it's best that you start with a course or some kind of short-term program or accelerator to build those foundations. love my mastermind for scaling, not starting it's for scaling.

not starting. Second time you want to wait is if you want to savior, okay? Nobody's coming to save you. If you want to save, you're not a strategy. If you're hoping that the room, you know, fixes your lack of motivation, you're hoping the room is going to be the final thing that breaks through all the trauma you've endured, you know, over your lifetime that is limiting you from growing your business, this is not the place, not the place for that.

If you've got chronic avoidance, if you don't participate, hard pass for right now. know, coaching amplifies effort. Okay, it doesn't replace it. So if you're lacking in effort, if you're disillusioned with your business, mean, hiring somebody to talk through that disillusionment is really smart and important. But if you're wanting somebody to save you, if you're looking for a savior, this isn't going to be the right fit for you.

A good coach is a guide. Okay. They're not a savior. Last kind of wait, wait it out is if you're in a life storm right now with no bandwidth, if you are in, in the muck, if you can't implement anything for the next 60 to 90 days, push the decision, even if it means you miss out, it's just not worth it.

You have got to move through your life storm. But if you're on, if you're on the other side of a life storm and you're ready to get back into the swing of things, joining a program can really help. But if you are, you know, I don't want to throw out any scenarios, but if you're a life is literally not in a good place right now, you've got to protect your piece and then come back when you are, you have more space and more bandwidth and you feel ready.

Candice (42:42.83)

Okay, that's the best time to come back. All right, so I've given you so much to think about and this has been such a great conversation today. I do want to share with you a little bit more about WPI in case everything that I've mentioned to you up until this point, you're wondering, okay, I think I'm ready for something like this. I have ideas, I want to scale, I want to fix things in my business, I want to supercharge this opportunity, I'm ready to get out of my own way.

I'm ready to meet people. I'm ready to do it. I want to share with you a little bit about my coaching philosophy and how I approach coaching inside my mastermind WPI. My style is very direct. I'm direct. I'm direct with everybody. I don't have time to waste. You don't have time to waste. I don't want to beat around the bush. So I believe in being direct. But my directness isn't meanness. I'm very supportive. And I know when you need direct feedback,

or when you need a cuddle, no shank. I know when you need the difference. But my coaching style is direct. It's also very strategic. I'm all about strategy. I'm all about looking at the best leverage points. I'm all about saving you time. I'm also about exploring what you're excited about, following your highest excitement. I'm about motivating you, getting you excited, helping you see things clearer. I love strategy.

I am very comfortable saying that as a coach, am ridiculously supportive. I, we develop a friendship, a kinship, a relationship. I deeply care for every single woman that I have ever coached. I care about your success. I care about you as a person. I am a resource and I am fully invested and available, which you don't often get from every

And that's, that's okay. Not everybody is me and not everybody needs a coach like me. So I will celebrate your wins and I'll also tell you when you are up to your old bullshit and I'll help you untangle the bullshit and get back on track. And inside wedding pro insiders, you get one-on-one coaching with me.

Candice (45:06.382)

private coaching calls that you can utilize throughout the year long experience. You also get access to me on Voxer, which is a text and voice app privately in our own separate chat, where we talk about everything, life, work, team members, strategy, clients, shitty situations, vendors who are pissing you off, days where you want to cry, days where you want to rejoice. We talk about it all.

You also get group hot seats, which every month we do Hot Seat Week and we have group calls. You choose a time that works best for you. There are multiple to choose from and you jump into a call with six other ladies and we talk about you and them and we give you clarity. We also have frameworks that we implement and we don't do them every month, but we have reoccurring workshops.

And CEO sessions that we call them where we come together and we work on things like auditing your sales funnel. We have done an alignment audit recently for members, just seeing what is out of alignment in your business so that we can work on it together. do marketing workshops, financial planning workshops and CEO sessions. So you are learning, but equally implementing. You're learning strategies about money, about marketing, about business development, about being the owner of your business.

and you're learning about these things, but you're also implementing these things. So it is not this existential video and then you were left to figure it out on your own. No, I'm there on the call with your workbook, getting you to do the work that you maybe don't even know you need to be doing. You'll also get monthly audits or critiques from me. Remember, send me their website, landing pages, their pricing guides, their services guides.

They said me things they're working on, design decks. They want me to look through their galleries and help them choose images, critique their work. I have critiqued pretty much everything on earth. And I love it because I think that direct feedback on certain aspects of your business, whether it's your new branding, your pricing, a workflow, I have critiqued entire email workflows. One woman in my mastermind has this incredible automated email sequence from

Candice (47:25.036)

The moment they book into the offboarding, we went through every step of it. It took some time, but we went through every email, every touch point. So I've critiqued pretty much everything. And this is great. It gives you direct feedback. We also have a library of trainings that you can watch on everything from growing your team to marketing to mindset. And you have this community of women who are playing big, who are thinking big, who are thinking outside the box, who are genuinely

nice and excited for you. Who are your equals, your peers? And they want you to win just as much as they want to win. You also have our mastermind retreat here at my home in Barbados. I did a whole podcast episode on that if you want to listen. So my coaching philosophy is direct, strategic, supportive. And I think when you look at all the layers of support inside WPI, you can see that I have created an environment rich of learning.

implementation, strategy, and making bold moves. And I'm inviting you to come and apply to be a part of our mastermind. So this will be the last opportunity to apply. If you've been on the fence, if you have questions, you can reach out to me. I'd love to talk to you about it and make sure it's a good fit for you.

You can learn more at weddingproinsiders.com all about the mastermind and the prices, extremely reasonable for a year experience of one-on-one coaching and an in-person retreat, which is included in your experience at my home in Barbados. The cost to join WPI is just 6.99 a month, or you can pay in full and get a discount, or you can split pay and do two payments of 3,999.

It's financially accessible. is jam packed with support. It is a year long and can be longer. So one of the things about WPI that you should know is because it's not an accelerator or a traditional mastermind format, there's an opportunity for you to get comfortable and to work with me and to stay in the experience year over year. So long as it's serving you. Some of the women have been in the mastermind since 2019.

Candice (49:45.878)

And many stay on for two, three and plus years. I'd say average is about three. But people continue to stay on beyond that. And I love that. I'm the type of person, I don't know about you, but like when I find my spot, I like to just get comfortable there. And I like to dim out all the other crap that is, you know,

all the other noise and I like to get cozy and comfortable. And I love the idea of working with a coach year over year. They really get to know your business. They get to know you. They know where you suck, where you're great. And so that opportunity is there for you as well, but is very, very reasonably priced, especially for all the support you get. And for most of you guys, I mean, this is booking one wedding. That's all. It's just booking one wedding, one awesome badass wedding, and it pays for itself for the entire year.

So what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to go to weddingproinsiders.com, check out our information page, all the details of what you get described for you are all there. You can see some images from our retreat too, and some of the women who are in the mastermind. And click that application button. Tell me about your business. Tell me about what you are hoping to achieve in the next year, what problems you're facing, what keeps you up at night. Tell me what's going on. Tell me what you dream about.

And let's see how we can get you closer to a business that gives back to your meaningful life, that feels as good as it looks. So go to weddingproinsiders.com to learn more. And you know, I'm here on the podcast as your forever coach. I would love to continue to have conversations about coaching and masterminds and courses and what makes sense and what doesn't make sense. So if you have questions that you'd like me to answer, you can always sidebar me and I'll definitely work those into a future episode.

All right, friend, I hope to see your application to our mastermind come through my inbox when you are ready. And hopefully you're feeling pretty ready after today's episode. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being here. I want to remind you there's so much power in your purpose and I'll see you next week.