Prepandemic, Nicole Fauls’s business, Urban Allure Events, put on 150 weddings a year. But in all of 2020, the number was just 12. To avoid laying off her seven employees, Fauls did something unexpected: In October 2020, she took herself off the payroll and took a full-time job with a veterinary company. “I let my team run everything,” she says. The plan worked. Now Urban Allure has more celebrations on the books than ever, and Nicole returned as boss this past March.
What pushed you to make this change?
I didn’t want to let anybody go, because our company is built on relationships with our couples, and we had to reschedule 85 to 90 weddings in a super-short amount of time. But I said, “I can step away.”
What did…