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

Alright, Victoria thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

As I was scrolling through the questions that I could choose to talk about today, I came across this one and it is something that crosses my train of thought almost on a daily basis. There is such an allure towards becoming your own boss and working for yourself. You get to pick your own hours, choose your days off, do what you love, etc. BUT it is not always what it’s cracked up to be.

Am I happier as a business owner? 100%. All of the above is true. I do have that freedom to make those choices on a daily basis. However, my choices directly impact my ability to make money and grow. If I choose to take the day off am I catering to work/life balance and my mental health OR am I falling behind on work and losing out on a day or more of productivity? I don’t know that there is a right answer to that. Being a business owner, at least for myself, feels like one huge blurred line or gray area. Do I believe I am happier than I would be if I was working a corporate job and answering to someone else? Yes. I have a 10 month old and I cannot imagine having to go back to work when he was 6 weeks old. I have gotten to be home with him this whole time and it has been one of the biggest blessings. I also get to spend more time with my husband, who is also a small business owner.

However, even with all of the good that contributes to making me happier, there are a lot of elements that make it harder. At least with the industry I am in and the nature of my business, it makes it hard to find boundaries with work. There is no 40 hour work week. It’s more like 60-80 hours and sometimes even more. It can make it difficult to separate time when working at home. When is it time to put work away and take care of the home? It takes a lot of will power and strength to follow self-inflicted boundaries with work.

I often think about how nice it could be to have a strict boundary like clocking in and out of work and once I get home, I am just home. No worry about work that must be done outside of the office. When I’m off on weekends, I could truly be off of work. I could go to future sports games for my son without thinking about the work I am putting off. I could take a two week paid vacation every year without thinking about the money I am missing out on or the work that is piling up. It sounds like a great time!

With all that, I wouldn’t trade what I have for the world because it has allowed me the personal growth of learning how to begin setting boundaries and being a person who can be autonomous over herself. It allows me to work towards a higher vibrational self awareness and self discipline state.

Victoria, 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?

thatBliss is a full service wedding planning, production, and venue management company. While we specialize in weddings, we also do corporate events. We provide event planning services and assist clients in sourcing, contracting, and planning logistics with their contracted vendors for their event. We offer event production to allow practically any venue to become all inclusive for clients. We can provide catering, design, entertainment, rentals, etc. Within the past year, we also started offering venue management services for property owners who have an event space they need help managing. We will manage, sell, and book all potential clients. Further, we are able to then provide those clients with all inclusive services for their event. If a property owner prefers to not host events, but is interested in luxury vacation rentals, we offer property management that allows an average AirBnB to become an all inclusive vacation or corporate retreat experience. We use our event production capabilities to produce services for guests like a private chef, onsite spa services, and more.

I am very proud of how much we have accomplished and where we are now. When I first started my business, I was a senior in college working on my BA in psychology. I did my first two weddings for free and after I raised my prices slightly I still was only charging bottom of the industry rates just trying to book anything and everything. NOW I get to work with my ideal clientele and charge top of the industry rates.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

I bought out a rental company three weeks before COVID hit. It was the scariest thing I have ever done. I was so excited, invested a ton, and had a plan. That rental company was a big reason I was able to survive through COVID. It was a fairly easy process once I figured out what needed to be done. I initially looked into getting a small business loan but landed on a 0% intro offer on a credit card from the recommendation of my banking officer. While I invested a good amount of money, I was able to get approved for a good credit limit and it just made more sense.

Then I had to figure out storage, labor, and how to market the new items. We were able to rent a garage space out for the first year. After that I moved to two storage units. In the end I did decide to sell because post COVID, labor was impossible to find. Everyone was getting unemployment and no one wanted to work. It made it extremely hard to commit to events when I couldn’t get anyone to commit to working them. I ended up selling in the beginning for 2022 and by the end of 2022 morphed into our venue management + production services. It made it frustrating that I had sold all of our inventory and then needed inventory again. However, I believe it was the best decision at the time and it fell right when I had my son.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I am very strict with what I will and will not do. This allows me to produce seamless events, every single event. I am strict on what vendors I will and will not work with. I also make sure to maintain excellent communication. My clients always feel taken care of. My whole team is held to higher standards of professionalism and self presentation. I had an employee that I felt was not presenting themselves in a manner that I want representing my business and brand. After addressing my concerns multiple times with this person, I ultimately decided it was not a good fit and cut ties. In this industry, presentation is everything.

Further, I always get comments about how calm my team is on wedding days. Weddings are historically very stressful occurrences and many people have a hard time managing stress on these days. We put in so much work leading up to make sure every detail is addressed and any possible scenarios of something going wrong, are thought of and back up plans or strategies are in place.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thatbliss.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/that_bliss/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thatblissweddings/

Image Credits
Diana Lake Photography Kami LaLonde Saje Photography