Meet Ann Kim

We were lucky to catch up with Ann Kim recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ann, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

A lot of my purpose comes from finding ways to help others avoid my mistakes and to help them achieve their goals more quickly and efficiently through the lessons I’ve learned. There’s a popular book called “Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren and it begins with the words “It’s not about you.”

I’ve realized that if there’s a way that I can help others find a more direct route to accomplish their goals, I would love to help them get there. I’m more than happy to share my lessons with someone who can benefit from my decades of experience in producing events. Further, we all have different gifts and talents that can bless others, and when we are operating in our gifts that’s when we are the most fulfilled in living out our purpose.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I started my Wedding Planning company, LA Socials in 2011, after having planned countless events and celebrations. During that time I had an opportunity to work with a wide variety of brides from those who had DIY budget weddings to over-the-top extravagant brides where price was no object.

Throughout my years of planning, I’ve wanted to create an opportunity to make wedding planning accessible to all brides. To that end, I created the Expert Wedding Course, which is a digital course that teaches brides how to plan their wedding on a budget. I teach them the pitfalls of planning, the mistakes to avoid, the questions they should ask their vendors, and how to negotiate for the best value to maximize their planning budget.

The idea behind the Expert Wedding Course came about when a good friend of mine asked me for advice on booking her wedding venue. She had fallen in love with her dream location but it was out of her budget. After I had coached her on how to negotiate with her vendors, she was able to not only have her wedding at her dream venue, but to also stay within budget!

That’s when I decided to create a digital course so that I could help more brides have their dream wedding, without having to overextend themselves beyond their finances. For a few minutes a day, brides can learn how to save thousands of dollars on their planning (though results vary depending on each situation, and are not guaranteed). The Expert Wedding Course includes timelines and checklists and walks brides on how to use them. For those who want to use a digital planner, there’s also an option to utilize the same digital planner that wedding professionals use with their clients, at a discounted price. The digital planner is the equivalent of having your own wedding planner at your fingertips, available around the clock at your convenience.

In addition to the digital course offering, I’ve taken my love of video and social media to weddings as well and now offer Wedding Content Creation. As a wedding content creator, I capture priceless behind-the-scenes memories for brides from their wedding day. Content creators don’t replace wedding photographers or videographers who create edited final images and cinematic videos for brides. Instead, content creators record short bursts of videos in a vertical format that are usually candid bts videos meant for social media. And instead of waiting for weeks and sometimes even months for the final product, brides can usually receive their content in 24-48 hours. The reason for this quicker turnaround is that the videos are not edited and intended for the bride to use as material for her social media that she can piece together. In my content creation packages, I include a set number of reels that I create as a final product for brides as well.

Overall, it’s been exciting to see how video, media and technology are evolving to provide more resources for brides.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities I’m finding to be the most impactful are gratitude, courage, and humility. Gratitude because it allows you to see the silver lining even when things look bleak, or the work gets difficult. Creating a business is not for the faint of heart, and courage is often necessary to get out of your comfort zone. A great quote by John Maxwell is to “fail early, fail often, but always fail forward”. Failing means taking risks and that often requires you to be brave.

Humility is also significant, a trait my brother always encouraged. Jim Collins references this in “How the Mighty Fall” where he mentions hubris as the first stage of decline for successful businesses. Humility promotes an open mind and the pursuit of learning new skills to stay ahead of the trends.

When I get asked about what advice I would give to someone just starting and unsure of what career they would like to pursue, I recommend getting a job where they can learn sales. No matter what profession they work in, sales is a valuable skill that transfers across industries. Sales is not about convincing someone to purchase something they don’t need, but rather learning how to communicate the value of a product to someone who can benefit from it. In the process of learning how to sell, they’ll find that their ability to articulate and communicate ideas will have increased. This can be an important foundation to build on in any future endeavor.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

I would say the most impactful book in my life, personally and professionally, is the Bible. The tenets of the Bible have been the foundation for successful thought leaders and business advisors like Zig Ziglar and others. It’s called the Living Word because you can read the same words and yet find different applications and meanings at different times.

Some takeaways include knowing that God has a plan and purpose for your life, and pride comes before a fall are just some examples that I’ve found helpful. To start, the Book of Proverbs is a good compilation of wise teachings.

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Image Credits

Gloria Mesa Photography, Orange Blossom Photography

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