Are you hesitating to make a big investment for your business? Today’s episode marks the start of a new mini-series around money: spending it, saving it, and changing your mindset around it. I’m sharing the hard truths, like how running a sustainable and successful business costs a lot of money. I hope this series gives you the courage to finally invest big and wisely.
The Shoot It Straight Podcast is brought to you by Sabrina Gebhardt, photographer and educator. Join us each week as we discuss what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, Shoot It Straight Podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
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This episode is brought to you by Root to Rise, a mastermind and retreat for female photographers where personal development meets business growth. During the four-month experience, students have weekly calls focused on goals, boundaries, money, and marketing. The program also includes incredible guest teachers, a private Facebook community, and weekly Voxer hours with individualized guidance and mentorship. Sign up today to join the waitlist.
Review the Show Notes:
I am no expert (1:04)
Hesitating to make big investments (1:48)
Coaching my students through fear (3:14)
You need to invest money to make money (4:07)
You can stay right where you are (5:53)
Investing money wisely leads to growth (8:11)
Fear is holding you back (9:26)
Episode Links:
Episode 21: Excitement and Fear
Review the Transcript:
Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gephardt. Here I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur. while balancing business, motherhood and life myself along with my guests will get vulnerable through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there.
If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in yet willing to talk about the hard stuff to to shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight. Welcome back to the shoot it straight podcast my friend, today marks the start of a new mini series. And this time we’re talking all about money. For the next few weeks, I’m going to dive in on saving it spending it mindset issues and more. And as I’m sure you know, money is a big topic and something that so many people struggle with personally and in their businesses. I want to start off by saying that I am not a financial expert, no, not not even remotely close. In fact, over the years, I’ve had some serious money struggles. In fact, in the past three years, I’ve committed to a lot of my own personal development and coaching into exploring this exact topic. I’ve made massive progress in this area. And I love digging into money and sharing my progress and what I’ve learned with students and with others. So just know that as we go through this series, some of these thoughts have come up for me personally, or they’re things that I have coached other women through, but that that does not mean that I’m perfect, or an expert in this area.
Okay, so I want to start with an idea that actually came up in a coaching conversation, actually multiple coaching conversations recently with a few of my mastermind students. So several of these women, they’ve been in business for years and years, they are already making really good money. And they are incredibly talented photographers, they had all reached this point where a lot of them were struggling, because they had a lot of really big investments looming on the horizon, equipment that needed to be upgraded, computers that needed to be purchased, coaching programs they wanted to invest in, and system changes that needed to be updated. The lists were really long, and they were long with things that cost a lot of money individually. So when you look at the list, you’re talking a solid five figures worth of investments coming down the pipe. As you can imagine, each of these women was struggling in their own way. With the looming investments, they were hesitating on pulling the trigger because of fear. There was fear even though the money was there, there was fear, even though their businesses are extremely established. There was fear, even though they knew that more money was coming in. Each of my students was struggling to make these purchases that they knew they needed. So how did I help them through these fears?
First of all, I want you to know, my job as their coach is not to push them off the edge of the diving board. My goal is not to bully them into hitting the buy button. My job is to first and always hold space for what they are struggling with. That looks like hearing them, empathizing with them, and helping to open their eyes to what is really going on under the surface. I listened to each of these women talk around and around in circles about these investments and their fear. I had conversations with them for weeks, listening and empathizing, rationally pointing out things I heard them say and then pushing back a little on the fear that I could hear in their voice. And naturally, each one of these conversations turned into the exact same conclusion. There’s a truth in business that is a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow. But it’s truth all the same. This is the thought that you need to invest money to make money. I’m sure you’ve heard this sentiment before. And I believe that it’s true 100%. Of course, there are a few businesses that can start for free. And you can earn the first little bit with no overhead but that doesn’t last long. At some point, your business needs to be invested in in order to grow to the next level. And in the beginning.
The next level is a small step, and therefore the investment to move up that step is also small, but over time, the growth and the leveling up gets bigger and bigger and so do the investments. Running a long term sustainable and successful business costs a lot of money, some of my news During this gasp when they hear what I spend annually to run my business, it is insane. But it’s the only way that this ship can sail and stay on course, after almost 13 years, I have lots of systems, lots of equipment and lots of people who helped me every single day. It’s the only way that I can continue to grow. And without these investments, I wouldn’t be where I am. Without these investments, I would still be a photographer struggling to find ease, struggling with overwhelm, and not making much money. Without these investments, I definitely would not be an educator. And this podcast wouldn’t exist. At some point. If you want to grow your business, you have to invest big, whether that’s in systems, in contractors in technology in coaching, or more likely, in all of the above, it’s an absolute must to continue to move forward. Of course, let me say you can always skip all that and stay right where you are. And that is not a bad thing.
There are a lot of photographers and entrepreneurs out there who are purposefully part time. And that is awesome for them. As long as it’s intentional. You can make your business look like whatever you want it to and if you want to keep it small and steady, because that’s all you want. Or because you have a full time job or because you have other interests that you are pursuing that is perfect, you do you. But for those of you who like my students are ready to level up, you’re ready to make more money, or step into education or you want to own a studio or you want to take whatever that next big leap is, if that’s you, I’m telling you that you cannot do it while staying stuck in the fear of investing money. Today’s episode is brought to you by route to rise a four month mastermind and retreat for female photographers. That is where personal development meets business growth. During the four month experience, students have weekly calls focusing on a variety of topics that both better their lives and their businesses.
Think topics like goals, boundaries, money and marketing, and many many others. The program also includes incredible guest teachers, a private Facebook community and weekly Voxer hours, where you get individualized guidance and mentoring from me on topics that matter to you and your business. One of the best parts of the experience is definitely the three day in person retreat. Consider this the most fun girls weekend ever. We eat well do yoga, photograph three sessions, work through portfolio reviews, take headshots and build deep friendships, I can tell you that the women who have gone through this program have had some absolutely incredible transformations reached massive goals and changed the trajectory of their businesses. If you want to get on the waitlist to be notified when enrollment opens again soon, you can head over to the link in the show notes and get on that list. And now back to the episode.
investing money wisely leads to growth. The key there is quote unquote, the investing wisely part that doesn’t mean throwing your money haphazardly at every guide preset summit ticket and force that you see, I see a lot of people get stuck there. They say they’re investing, but they’re not growing. But when you dig deeper, you see that they’re actually just getting really distracted. They’re investing in everything they see because it’s new and shiny and exciting. But then they don’t do anything without an investment. They don’t implement the software, they don’t finish the course they don’t show up on the coaching calls, they don’t utilize the support. And so their investments are wasted. Not only is there no growth, they have less money making it into their personal checking account. That’s a problem. investing wisely means knowing what you need and what you don’t.
It means investing in something going all in learning it, implementing it. And then moving on to the next big thing. It means being brave and choosing things that will make a big impact, even if it means a big price tag. investing wisely means knowing where you want to go and what you need to get there and then ignoring everything else. So if this episode is hitting you in the gut, if you resonate with what I’m saying, if you recognize this fear, because you’ve been there before, or maybe you’re stuck in it right now, I want to leave you with one last thought, friend. I’m going to say this with a little bit of tough love. Fear is holding you back. Your fear is keeping you stuck. You are letting fear when the only way through fear is straight through it. I actually did another podcast episode about this. If you want to hear more about fear go back and listen to episode 21 I’m going to have it linked in the show notes for you but your gut, your gut wants more for you and for your business. You know that investment that you need to make you know what your business needs? What would it look like if you moved through fear and made the commitment? Think on that for a bit. Stop allowing yourself to think about the negative what ifs, and allow yourself to ruminate on the positive, what ifs, how this investment is going to support you what this investment will do for your time, how this investment will let you move to the next level. Sit with those positive thoughts for a bit and see how you feel.
My hope truly is that whatever in this investment, you have been hesitating in that you will be excited and have the courage to finally go after it. That’s it for today, my friend. I hope that you found this episode inspiring and encouraging. And if you did, will you do me a favor? Will you share a screenshot on Instagram and tag me at Sabrina Gebhardt photography. I love to hear from you and would love to connect with you over on the gram. So join me for next week’s episode, the second in the series all about money. It’s going to be a great one. We’ll see you then. Thanks so much for listening to the shoot it straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode at Sabrina gebhardt.com backslash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gebhart photography. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review. Until next time, my friends shoot it straight
