WII 184 – What Annette Naif Learned Making Negative $57 Per Hour

WII 184 – What Annette Naif Learned Making Negative $57 Per Hour

From Wedding Industry Insider by Eddie Babbage: Wedding Technology Entrepreneur

January 13, 2026 · 53 min · Episode 184

About this episode

Annette Naif shares her journey from struggling with negative pay to becoming a successful event planner.

When Annette Naif opened her event planning business at the age of 46, she had one big secret: she had no idea what she was doing. She knew how to plan events, and she was good at it. But when it came to running a business, she was clueless, and she didn’t want anyone to know. This was despite having a degree in business, a legal background, and commercial experience. Everyone has to start somewhere. And for Annette’s first wedding, her starting pay was negative $57 per hour. Over the course of her career — with help from coaches, her network of support, and a lot of dedication and learning — Annette grew to be a successful event planner with a thriving business. And now she’s sharing her hard-learned lessons with wedding pros like us. Annette is our guest this week on Wedding Industry Insider, and this lively conversation is full of fun anecdotes, helpful advice, and thoughtful reflection. She’s sharing excellent marketing advice and dishing out her secret sauce to networking. Here’s what we’ve got in store for you in this week’s episode: How Annette overcame the scariest parts of opening an event planning business The worker’s comp incident that cost her tens of thousands of…

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