In the wedding and events industry, there’s a lot of buzz around “Benchmarking” — comparing your performance to “industry averages” or what similar venues and businesses are supposedly doing. It sounds helpful on the surface. But in reality, benchmarking can actually hurt your growth, focus, and decision-making.

I have worked with wedding and event companies for over 20 years, most of that as a business owner. Prior to this, I worked as a Chartered Accountant and business analyst with a number of companies including PricewaterhouseCoopers, Microsoft and Dell. My years of experience have allowed me to understand business, and particularly wedding and events businesses.  

In business, it is incredibly important to set goals and targets - real defined goals and targets based on real and relevant marketing, sales and financial information relating specifically to your business. 

At BriteBiz, we believe that your best benchmark is your own business — not someone else’s numbers. Here’s why.

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1. Benchmarking Data Isn’t Built for You

Most benchmarking systems pull data from broad, anonymous pools of users. That might sound useful—but what exactly are they comparing you to? Here are some examples.

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• I know of very successful venues that focus on doing 4 weddings a week. I know of other more profitable venues that only do 2 weddings a week, each lasting 3 days - the second one is doing half the number of weddings but making almost twice the amount of money. Sometimes fewer weddings are the benchmark.

• There are venues that try to attract high volume of enquiries, listing on every wedding directory they can find. The result, hundreds of enquiries, most of which are low quality. Other venues focus on high quality, low volume leads, with a much higher conversation rate. Sometimes fewer quality enquiries are the best tactic.
  

• No two businesses are the same. A high-end floral designer doesn’t need to compare to a budget event stylist. If the average price of a wedding is published at 25k, this is the average (not even the mean), and makes no allowance for the weddings that are above the 100k mark. You cannot compare luxury with budget, and both feed the average.

• ‍A solo planner in a rural location is not the same as a 12-person planning team in London or New York. Business are not the same - for many reasons.

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Using so called “norms” and “benchmarks” is like comparing apples to paperclips. Your location, team size, target audience, and brand positioning matter—and benchmarks don’t account for those nuances.

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2. Profit is King

One of the biggest failings of benchmarks, is they generally make no allowance for profit or margins, only top of the line metrics like average number of weddings, cost per wedding, sales enquiries per season etc. Real business start from the bottom up, how much profit do we want to make next year, and how do we go about doing that. Create your own benchmarks. 

Yes, it is interesting to know averages, but in reality, your business will survive or fail based on profit and margins, as well as reputation. Every business has its own brand and reputation management which is key to success. 

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3. Real Metrics > Vanity Metrics

At BriteBiz, we encourage our clients to focus on real, internal performance data:

• How many quality leads did you generate last month? Do we want to increase this by 10% next month, or reduce the number of leads and focus on quality?
  
• What was your proposal-to-booking conversion rate?
• What is our average booking value, compared to last year? What is our average margin per booking?
  
• If we spend 50k on an extension, how can we adjust pricing and how will this influence our revenue? 
• How fast are we getting paid?
• What is our staff turnover rate? How can we improve that?
  
• How many booked clients came from specific channels or referral partners? How do we want to develop/or drop, a specific channel. 
• How much revenue and profit do we need next year? How can we improve our margins?
  
  

These are the metrics that actually move the needle—not how your enquiry number stacks up to an industry average that may or may not reflect your reality.

I always believe that the best metrics are not national publications, but the 10 closest venues or businesses that manage a business like yours. If you are lucky enough to have good relations, meeting for a coffee and chatting through figures, or in an online social group, is the most powerful way of tracking metrics and keeping on top of norms for businesses like yours in your locality. 

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4. Your Prior Year is Your Best Benchmark

Forget the myth that you must beat the “industry standard.” Instead, look inward:

• If you booked 48 weddings last year, set a goal to do 55 this year. Or maybe 40 with a higher margin per booking. Whatever makes sense to your personal life and to your business.
  
  
• If your average response time was 36 hours, aim for 24. Faster response is good for all businesses.
  
  
• If 50% of your inquiries were dead leads, focus on lead quality, not just volume. Consider if some sources, such as low quality wedding directores, are providing real ROI, or just taking up admin time with no ROI at all.
  
  

Last year’s performance is your most relevant benchmark, because it reflects your systems, team, pricing, and market. This is where BriteBiz shines—giving you the tools to track, measure, and improve your own growth.

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5. Beware Systems That Sell Benchmarking as a Feature

If a system is pitching “benchmarking” as one of their best features, it’s a red flag.

Why?

Because that usually means they’re not offering the deeper tools your business really needs—like cashflow management, booking margin tracking, smart client journeys, marketing integrations with Facebook/Google Ads, or other necessary features like payment or accounting integrations. They’re selling data about other people instead of empowering you to own your data.

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The BriteBiz Approach: Your Business. Your Growth. Your Way.

BriteBiz isn’t about comparing you to “the market”. We are about streamlining your processes to make you more profitable. We are about you and your business! 

We’re about:

• Giving you the right tools to measure what matters.
  
  
• Helping you reduce admin, streamline proposals, and get paid faster.
  
  
• Making it easier to set meaningful goals based on your actual performance.
  
  

Final Thought

If you’re serious about growing your venue, vendor, or planning business, stop chasing industry averages that are not relevant to your personal life or business. Start focusing on your numbers, your goals, your life, your process—and the rest will follow.

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Because, at the end of the day, your business isn’t average.

So why would your metrics be?

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Want help setting up your own business goals and metrics inside BriteBiz to benchmark your business for success? Get in touch with us today.

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