Pricing During COVID
As if producing weddings during COVID wasn’t enough, you also have to figure out how it fits behind the scenes of your business and your bottom line.
For example, will you need to enlist deeper cleaning measures after each client meeting at your office? Sanitation stations or masks? Or will you need to purchase a subscription plan to a video conferencing software that will allow you to virtually meet with your clients and their event team? How will these new procedures affect your workflow and productivity?
That needs to be added to your collection prices, just as much as your new day of needs.
Speaking of your day-of needs, you have thought about that too, right?
You know– gloves, masks (multiple for you and your staff), wipes, sprays, hand sanitizers, etc. Will new protocols require you to need more time to set up or additional staff? Do you need to account for bringing in your food for yourself and your staff?
These are all things that are necessities for this new normal and all things that will eat into your profit margin quickly if you don’t get a handle on it.
MAJOR 💎s
- Go through your workflow and identify what will need to be adjusted to meet protocols. Pay attention to where you have to meet with clients and vendors. What will need extra time, service, or safety items?
- Talk with your staff and clients to see what makes them feel the safest during this time. If virtual meetings are a consensus, find a program that works for you and also allows you to reference recorded video when needed.
- Create guidelines for meetings in your office and weather masks will be required, and if so, supplied for those who do not have their own.
- What will be necessary for you to complete your service safely and efficiently? Can these items be procured at a wholesale rate or can you split an order with other pros for savings?
- Total up all of these costs for each wedding for the season and divide them amongst your weddings. Decide if you will absorb these costs, add them to final invoices as a flat fee or percentage or use it as a reference when rethinking costs for next season.
Terrica,
What do you advise in the case of individuals who show up to an event with a fever? I have decided to advise all my brides to have their hostess take temperatures at the door, and I want to set up an area where these individuals if they refuse to leave a place to safely distance themselves from the wedding party. What have you found to be useful?
Hey Pamela!
Hope you’re doing great!
Personally, I do not want the liability of personally checking temperatures or having that associated with my advice or service. Leave that to the venue (if mandated by municipal orders) or the client to decide and/or enforce. People could have elevated temperatures for a myriad of reasons outside of COVID– how will you know, differentiate, or handle that? Alternatively, what if the MOB or FOB has a temperature? What if you have a gathering exceeding the limit inside, yet the FOB or FOG is outside and is not allowed in? Ultimately, we cannot police grown adults. We have to trust that they will do the “right” thing– this includes our clients, guests, and creative partners. Moreso, it is important for all of the creative partners to be of one accord to set parameters in which the client and their guests should stay. Should anyone act outside of the boundaries, the clients will know ahead of time how it will or should be dealt with (e.g., a member of security or the family asking them to leave). What you can do is put as much protection on you as possible by determining what you constitute as a safe work environment and having rock-solid waivers and policies in place written by your attorney. Hope this helps.
Such good advice! These costs can seem small individually but once you add them up, it affects the bottom line. It’s like getting Netflix, and then you add hulu, and amazon, and Disney +, etc…. and you tell yourself each time you subscribe that “it’s not that much”. But add them all together and you’re spending more than you did on cable. It’s the same with PPE, sanitizer and all the additional expenses that coming with protecting yourself and your employees.