In this episode of the Venue Success Podcast, host Tirzah Caffee interviews Kalli Doubleday, PhD, who shares her unique journey from academia to becoming a successful wedding venue owner. The conversation covers various themes including the challenges of managing wedding venues, the importance of vendor relationships, and the balance between family life and entrepreneurship. Kalli emphasizes the significance of creating systems, educating clients, and fostering community relationships, all while maintaining a focus on personal well-being and flexibility in her work. About Kalli: "In 2011, where to get married in small town Graham, TX was very limited. Begrudgingly, I agreed when my dad suggested we go ahead and build my parent's tractor and car barn on their property where they planned to build and retire. Fast forward nearly 13 years later and they never built that home, but my dad and I did go into the venue business unexpectedly! All the while, creating and building the business side of Sparrow Creek Ranch, I was also a full time academic. I worked in India on human-tiger (and other big cat) conflicts helping find solutions to ensure tigers are part of the next decade. My strength is listening and identifying underlying resentment, fears, and truths that other scholars overlooked. For me, a large discovery was the connection to domestic abuse and tiger reintroduction to places where they had gone extinct and then reintroduced by the government. That is a long discussion and you can look up my body of work on Google Scholar, but the point being I love to lean in and listen. I do this in my business daily. Listening to couples, their families, vendors, and others to hear what is an underlying struggle that is being misidentified and solving that problem ahead of time is my venue owner's super power! I'm the director for two venues, Sparrow Creek Ranch and Shiraz Garden, which continues to center on ever-updating systems to ensure our clients have great experiences during the planning process. As a social scientist I love building out "codes" and "pipelines" and I would never want to operate my venue-only spaces without Honeybook.com which allows me to create 15-23 step automated pipelines for each type of event inquiry. Outside of my systems I will always preach that the greatest joy I find in the wedding industry is its unique place in small town economic growth and community support. With the struggles of small business the last four years I have seen several friends close their restaurants, wine bars, event venues, and more. As a wedding venue in small towns I get to advocate and bring in business directly to our local economies. The 7,000+ out of town wedding guests each year to my venues patron our hotels, restaurants, and gas stations, and of course our couples are a huge part of local wedding vendors' business like florists, bakers, caterers, bar, getaway cars, and more. This is my favorite part - the small business advocacy and community. I am in the process of purchasing a Boutique Resort Ranch and look forward to continuing to expand into new areas of the event and hospitality world on an international scale!" @sparrowcreekranch @wildcatterranch @shirazgardentx www.shirazgardentx.com www.sparrowcreekranch.com www.tirzahcaffee.com @venuesuccesspodcast Email to be on podcast: [email protected]

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related