We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Teresa Gebbett a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Teresa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

our daughter was planning her weddings so weddings were on my mind. We were walking across our pasture with the dogs and I mentioned how “fun” it would be to build a venue. Impulsive and never one to back away from an idea we came home, I drew a venue in the back of an envelope and the next day we made an appointment with a structural engineer and architect.
It was definitely a ball rolling situation and before we knew it we had a builder, permits and a start date. It was 2020 and we all know what happened that year but we went with it. It was also probably the muddiest season and we learnt a lot about plans, regulations, types if wood, how concrete is laid, more permits, ada compliance and most importantly – marketing. It was definitely not a case of build it and they will come. I had to learn social media, weddings design, automation and even how to respond in person to daft questions. Our first weddings were fall 2021 and since 2022 we’ve been fully booked. We have improved and added to tgat first design with outdoor chapels, a patio and landscaping as well as onsite accommodations. We continue to have new projects up our sleeves.

Teresa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Having built the wedding venue we set out to offer the most choices that anything new in our local area would have so for example we have five outdoor ceremony locations one indoor and one covered outdoor ceremony space this means that our couples have multiple options giving them the flexibility to not just look like any other wedding venue it’s also important to us that we have the ultimate rain plan so that no couple ever has to be stressed about the weather in North Carolina not cooperating we offer all the little extras most of our couples say we really did think of everything so we offer small items like bathroom essentials to dressing rooms which most venues don’t actually offer two dressing rooms a full service kitchen space a space that can be utilized for our Caterers to do Food Service We have basically stalked most other venues across the country to see what they offer and then added those extras to our venue we have it online automated system including a downloadable brochure and direct calendar link for couples to book their tools it’s important to us that we ensure that today’s modern couples have the ability to be able to do their research without having to speak to a human being which seems to be the way that they prefer to conduct their research on Philosophy for a couples is that their event is completely stress-free we don’t ever seem to have Bridezillas we make sure that we are answering all their questions and we offer all the preparation we possibly can beforehand our goal is to make sure that they have the wedding they want without any of the additional stress that seems to be prevalent in the wedding industry

Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.

In 2014 I purchased a bakery it was a business that I had actually worked at for 4 years previously and the owners who were a married couple were looking to retire move on and sell the business they had been looking to sell the business to a larger Consortium and unfortunately that haven’t worked out for them because they wanted more money than the business was realistically worth the business had been profitable providing they hadn’t taken a wage but it actually really wasn’t making any money so therefore When anybody took a good hard look at the numbers it didn’t make sense the price they were asking anyway I enjoyed working at the bakery and my husband and I decided to take a flyer on the business thinking that there were many ways that we could improve the business having worked there for 4 years previously I obviously knew the inner workings of many of the decisions that the bakery had made and thought that there might be better ways to run the business so we purchased it for more money than it was realistically worth however we then turned failing business that had grossed 34,000 for the previous year before we bought it to over six figures in the four years that I owned it it was hard work it was long hours and it was a dedicated lifestyle Choice rather than a money-making business however we did make a profit and we then went on to sell it in 2018 for a profit on what we had purchased it for and obviously what we had made the buying the purchase of the company was relatively simple because obviously we already knew the business and we knew the owners and whilst they put together a very basic pack and provided all of the information we needed it was relatively straight when we sold the business we had to put together a big sellers commercial park with all of the numbers that we had for the previous four years and projections and costings and there were a number of businesses or entrepreneurs who thought that they had always dreamed of owning the bakery who thought it would be good idea to buy without any knowledge of the business I would definitely say one of the most important parts of owning a small business is you really have to know your numbers you have to know your business you have to know the workings of the mechanics of it inside out so I learned everything from doing the Genesis work to doing the payroll to doing the tax returns to actually doing the baking because if you don’t know everything then you are going to spend money where you don’t need to we did finally sell the bakery to somebody who actually ends up closing it down because they didn’t really know their business inside out

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Years ago in our Market it was definitely a case of build it and they will come nowadays however you have to really be fingers in the pie and making sure that you are putting your business out there every which way there isn’t one strategy that I believe Works in our business we have done social media marketing extensively we have meta ads we have listing sites that we pay our high fees for to get inquiries some of its Word of Mouth now we have a big sign on the road that says wedding venue and people drive past and see that I just don’t think that there is a one quick fix for marketing I do believe that anything and everything I now do a podcast once a week I’ve been invited on to somebody else’s podcast we have done radio shows literally you need to say yes to any invitation you need to say yes to any option that you can afford to do in order to Market your business networking with other professionals within in the industry and being a community of a competition mentality really helps because other people would have had experience and ideas and they will have a contact that they can put you in touch with and even other venues that we are obviously in direct competition with we don’t see them as competition because there are clearly enough Brides for everybody if you work hard and strive for what is your ideal client and that’s something that we very strongly believe in that you need to ensure you identify who your ideal client is and you target them with your social media you target them with your marketing your target them on your website you make sure that when you do SEO that they are the kind of people who might read it and resonate with it’s very important into really go for reviews couples do read them couples need to know what other people are saying about you and whilst reviews are everybody’s nemesis and we all know that you either get one star or five star it’s so important to just get those five stars up there because it helps you even come up on the first page of a search so everything and anything that you can think of to get your name out there is the most important

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Theenglishcountrybarn.com
• Instagram: @englishcountrybarn
• Facebook: the English Country Barn of the carolina’s

Image Credits

Bee Captured Photography