We were lucky to catch up with Aaron Kleinmeyer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Aaron, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

When Kelsie and I started The Brim we did not set out to shake the wedding industry. In fact, we didn’t even realize we were starting a wedding venue. From the beginning we said, “Let’s build a space that would help strengthen marriage.”

Most venues care a whole lot about the wedding. Very few care about the marriage.

Everything that we do at The Brim must point to helping strengthen marriage. The price we charge, the offerings we give, the book we wrote, the classes we hold, etc.

When we tell people we own the worlds second free wedding chapel they are often puzzled. Typically they say that is really cool, but they have no idea how we make ends meet and pay our bills. But this was important to us. In our society we believe there should be no barrier to marriage. In Kansas City, there are 13,000 weddings that happen every year on average. 700 of those weddings happen in a courthouse. Are we to assume that 700 couples every year in this city were eager and excited to get married in a courthouse?

Through us looking at the numbers and diving into the wedding industry business practices, we have found that this industry alienates a lot of people. Either by charging a rate that is completely out of play for most or by offering things that people simply don’t need.

We believe this is why we have had over 200 weddings in 2022 with no running water and porta-potties onsite. We have never paid a dime to market The Brim. We believe, when telling the right story that the right story will find the right people. We expect to host around 500 weddings every year once we are fully established.

Aaron, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We have a wild story. We felt we were supposed to help couples strengthen their marriage. We set out to buy land and couldn’t find any. Until one day I was driving and found a piece of vacant land that wasn’t for sale. I figured out who owned it and wrote them a letter.

A month later their real estate agent contacted us and agreed to sell it to us. Wow! We went under contract for 11.1 acres.

While we were under contract we realized that in the county were were in we actually needed over 15 acres to do what we wanted to do. Just their rules. We were a little lost. But we decided to go forward with the purchase anyways.

There was about 5 acres on the back side of our property that was essentially useless to the business that owned the land at the time. Through a long set of circumstances and an accident that happened on our land the day after we officially purchased the property we were actually gifted that 5.5 acres along with the driveway that leads up to The Brim. I apologize for being vague, no one was hurt, but for legal reasons we aren’t allowed to talk about the company in any way.

In the end we had a total of 16.6 acres, a beautiful driveway, and we had been granted a 50 year permit allowing us to have weddings, winery, tasting room, and a guesthouse for folks to stay in.

The only problem was that we had drained our finances to pretty much zero and had no way to do what we wanted to do. So we started asking, “How can we help strengthen marriage with what we have?”

We landed on let’s build a small wedding chapel. After all, that is where the marriage starts. Kelsie found a wedding chapel in Austin Texas that hosts free weddings. We really connected with that. Plus, we had a trip scheduled to Austin in just two weeks. So we reached out. The founders agreed to meet with us.

These folks were strangers. Absolutely no reason they needed to meet with us. At the end of the meeting, the architect that designed that chapel just so happened to be there that day. We didn’t know who he was but we told them all our hearts for what we were doing and our story. The architect revealed he was the one that designed their chapel and he agreed to fly to Kansas City and to design one completely free for us. And the couple gave us 10 months of our mortgage on the land and said, “Go get started.”

I can tell you story after story about how things fell into place. But the first thing we did, because we did not have the funds to build the chapel, was we put telephone poles in the ground in the dimensions of the interior room of the chapel. And we invited folks to come hear our story and to listen to what we were trying to accomplish.

The next thing we knew we were touring strangers who heard about what we were wanting to do. We were willing to sing our song to anyone that would listen. We got picked up by some national news outlets. In the end we raised over $100,000 to build the worlds second free wedding chapel. We are not a not-for-profit, so no one received a tax benefit. We just found common ground with lots and lots of folks who cared about what we cared about.

Kelsie and I took a loan to cover the rest and we did a whole lot of the work ourselves.

We dove into being certain that our business practices are practical and serve people well.

While Covid was causing venues to close their doors, we had an outdoor ceremony space that was ready to be used and available. We opened up and let couples come get married. Our business has boomed.

We are currently under construction on the next building where we will hold receptions. Oh and we will have bathrooms in that building instead of porta-potties.

Through all of this we were asked to become Wizard of Ads Partners. On the side, we help small businesses share their story better than they can. We turn words into magic and dreamers into millionaires. We use the same principles that have helped build The Brim. We believe most industries are ripe for change. For those that believe what they do and are willing to never waiver there is reward waiting for them. And a lot of good to be done.

I was an ASE certified technician, a public school teacher, and now I focus on building The Brim and helping others do the same. My wife, Kelsie, and I work together on most things. She is a rockstar.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

People ask Kelsie and I this all of the time. Folks will come spend a day with us and want to know how they can find people to back them financially.

Listen, my secrets to financial backers is unique. Many will have a hard time with it. But I believe traditional wisdom is more traditional than wise. The traditional person is asking, “How do I find the money to start this business?”

The wise person is asking, “Am I so sold out on this that I will have the unwavering and unmistakable commitment necessary to follow through?”

It is the same question that is being asked by the person who might give you money. Are you going to follow through? Have you put your own money in? What about your most valuable asset, time? Have you given that asset too? Or are you just thinking about this idea in your spare time?

I believe if you win the heart the mind will follow. The logical mind will always justify what the illogical heart has decided. If you win someones time you will win their money.

Sounds manipulative, but as long as it is used for good, I can assure you it is not.

Kelsie and I, without knowing it were winning the time of “Investors”. We were telling them our story, how we were committed, how we wanted to help people, how we cared about marriage, how we had an idea and zero dollars in the bank. After we displayed all of this we asked them to consider donating and if they had a friend that they would like to bring out to the property and to hear the story.

We were winning time and hearts.

I think this is important for entrepreneurs. You have two assets in life. Time and money. One of those assets is fixed. Time is fixed. You can always get more money. Trust me, you can. You cannot get more time. It is the one asset that levels the playing field for everyone on this Earth. What will you do with that asset? What you choose to do now is important because you are trading something away that you will never get back.

This is again why we believe if you can win someones time their money will follow.

This same business principle applies to customer relations. I could go on and on. These and others are principles we teach to our clients.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

You know, it’s funny Kelsie and I have never spent a dime marketing The Brim; at least in the traditional sense. We aren’t listed on The Knot. (We can host 25 free weddings with the money we save not being on there.) The funny thing is, through being a Wizard of Ads partner, we have helped negotiate millions of dollars annually of mass media buys for other companies.

We believe that the marketing dollar spent is actually a tax on businesses that aren’t remarkable.

Marketing works best when the item or service you provide is worthwhile. I can’t tell you how many times a small business has asked Kelsie and I to help market their business and we politely tell them “No” because, well, their business is boring and marketing might actually hurt them.

Good marketing is actually an accelerant. It will speed up your ride and send you faster to the destination you were always bound to be at. If your business is destined to fall off a cliff then marketing will speed that up. If you are destined to go to the Moon then marketing will get you there faster.

When Kelsie and I started The Brim we leveraged social media for everything we could. And we still do. We had some very early posts go viral and we got noticed by some big players.

The reality is that free weddings, just about, market themselves. And in a round about way those free weddings help us market our paid options too.

Early on we offered brides displaced by Covid an outdoor space to come get married for free. A local big name brewing company heard about our offer and joined in to give any couple that takes us up on the offer free beer. They were literally throwing it away because bars weren’t buying it. But everyone ate that up! Or drank that up for that matter.

This is good marketing. Take something remarkable and start telling people about it.

When it comes to small business, I have seen that about 80% of business is from referral. The other 20% comes from actual marketing. The best marketing tool you have is to also focus on the operations of your business.

We believe that everyone has about 250 people within their sphere of influence. If you can win that one person you have actually potentially won 250 other people.

Think about the times you have been sitting around with your friends. What are the things you talk about?

Hopefully remarkable things.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thebrimkc.com/aaronandkelsie
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebrimkc/
• Youtube: https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCSVvEULpuEiPQebWR_woT_w
• Other: https://wizardofads.org/partner/aaron-kelsie-kleinmeyer/