165: Q4 2025 Business Bestie Chat with Colie James

Sabrina: On today’s episode of the Shoot It Straight podcast, I’ve got the quarterly business bestie chat with my girl, Coley James. And we did something a little bit different this time. We actually recorded this episode on Coley’s podcast, the business first creatives. So here’s the deal. You’ve been a listener for a while.

You know that this quarterly business Bestie Chat is now almost two years old, which is amazing. We have so much fun during these chats. But Coley’s been a little bit jealous. She’s been a little upset that it’s only been for the shoot at Straight audience because she loves these conversations as much as I do.

Well, she finally talked me into it and we decided we would record over on the Business First Creatives podcast, but we would air them on both. So. It is still the Business Bestie Chat. It is still Coley and I off the cuff, talking about in real time what is happening in our business. Changes that we’re making, things we’re working through, ideas that we’re having, giving each other guidance and feedback.

The only thing that changed is we recorded it and for her podcast, and so I’m giving you an intro so that, you know, sounds a little bit different this time, but it’s the same episode and I can’t wait to hear what you think this time. Let’s dive in.

Welcome to the Shoot at Straight podcast, where honesty meets heart and real talk actually means something. I’m your host, Sabrina Gehart, and each week we get vulnerable, practical, and just a little bit bold so you can feel seen, supported, and ready to take the next step in your photography journey.

Let’s go. Hi. I’m so excited. To mix this up a little bit because what is this, like the eighth one of these we’ve recorded? Yeah, two years girl. We made it pat ourselves on the back. I know. And it started as just a fun little, Hey, this could be a cool idea. Let’s see what happened. And because your listeners are new, uh, the listeners have shoot it straight, have always from the beginning given me more feedback and more dms and messages about how obsessed they are.

Just listening to you and I chat like we do in Voxer and just the, the nuggets they pick up from being like the fly on the wall to the conversation. And so I’m so excited that your audience now gets to participate because, uh, it’s great. It’s, we always have such a good chat.

Colie: It is fabulous y’all. And I will say so many of the things that you guys hear me talk about on the podcast or what I’ve done with my offers.

Started on the business, Besie Chat, for example. I’ve said it many times over there, but Systems in Session was literally like thought up during one of our business Bessie Chats, and it took me six months to get it running, but like the first iteration of it was a year ago on our Q4, or was it Q3, whatever it was, at the end of 2024.

I was like, I’m gonna do this thing. And then, you know, six months later it actually existed. Lemme just give you a rundown of how this normally works. We’re not quite sure that that’s what we’re gonna do this time, but I’m gonna tell you what we usually do. Anyways, Sabrina and I take the first part of the podcast.

To kind of run down what we had planned based on our last quarterly business chat. So we’re gonna say, well, you know, I thought I was gonna do this, and then we’re gonna give you guys an update. And then we always finish the podcast by kind of saying where we’re taking our business next, what are focuses, and just kind of like encouraging each other and kind of giving live feedback as we’re discussing what we have planned for the next quarter.

So that’s what normally happens. And I will say, y’all know, I don’t make notes for shit. Sabrina is usually the one that comes with like the summary and, but what about this and what about this? And today it’s kind of landed on me. And so that’s why I say it’s gonna be interesting to see if we keep the same format.

Sabrina: It’s gonna be great.

Colie: It is. It’s gonna be great. I mean, it’s gonna be fabulous anyways, but, so I’m gonna actually kick it over to Sabrina first. So Sabrina, it seems like from our last quarterly business chat. That you were gonna be taking things intentionally lighter for the quarter. You had a, I mean, listen to her laugh guys.

You were doing a couple of low lift offer launches. You were planning some things on your podcast around bringing in your people, your clients, in like an interview style podcast, which is something that you hadn’t done a lot of before. Um, you were running Facebook ads and you were just trying to continue that into the next quarter.

And then we spent a good chunk of time talking about route to rise. ’cause of course, this is your signature offer, this is your mastermind. This is what brings you the most joy. And by default it brings me the most joy when you do it. And then last, you did a lot of exploration on human design, which I don’t think we’re gonna get to that in this conversation because Sabrina and I actually have an entirely.

Separate podcast episode that is going to air soon after this one, where we are both gonna be talking about our human design and what that means for our business. So that’s the rundown of where you were for Q3. What do you wanna tackle first? Oh man.

Sabrina: I’ll tackle the, the short answers first, just to check through them.

’cause that’s what we do. I did have Root to Rise alumni come on the podcast, and I invited all of them to come, but you know, only I, I wanna say maybe eight or nine did, and it actually ended up being really fun because it was an entire episode where yes, they’re talking about their experience in the program, but it wasn’t so much like a sales pitch as it was.

Here’s where I was when I started. Here’s the things we worked through. Here’s what supported me the most, and here’s where I am now. So it’s just women getting to share their story and you know, because you’ve participated in it before as a guest expert, that everyone is so different, right? This program is very unique in that, you know, they’re not all in the same niche or in the same pos like spot.

They have different growth, uh, goals and want different things for themselves. And so the women that come through the program have really unique stories to tell and it, so it was really cool platform to get to put them on. And those episodes were really, really fun to record. And uh, I really enjoyed those.

I do have a couple of new, like tiny offers. When you said low lift things, I have some new tiny offers that are coming. Um, they’re actually three different $11 things that I’m putting into like an ad funnel that will be live hopefully in the next couple of weeks that I’m really excited about. I have finalized all of the details for Route Rise 2026, and that will be launching in just a few weeks.

So I’m actively pushing people to the wait list for that. I’m real excited about next year’s run and who the guests are going to be, where the retreat is going to be. And I already have several students enrolled, which is always like a pinch me moment that people like beg to come in before it’s, it’s even open.

So that’s amazing. Um, and I have been working on the human design stuff. That’s actually become a really big part of several projects I have going on this fall. But the biggest thing, the reason that I cracked up when you said taking things lighter this fall is for the listeners, this is the first fall in several years where I’m not running a cohort of route to rise normally I do an early year run and then a summer, fall run.

And last year, last summer, summer of 2024. I kind of knew that like, you know what? I think 2025 is gonna be just one run of this program. I don’t know really why I am thinking that, but I think I’m just gonna run in the beginning of the year and then leave the fall open. And I followed that intuition because I am really big on that and I trust my gut and.

I just kept thinking it’s probably because my daughter is a senior in high school. She plays a a fall sport. There’s all kinds of stuff happening with college applications. It’s busier and more stressful than normal. I figured that’s what was gonna fill the gap, but I kept myself open to maybe something else is coming.

Maybe something else is coming that’s meant to fill this hole. Well, well, let me just tell you. That this summer, June, July-ish, I kind of had a realization about something, a really big shift I was gonna make in my business that was like the first domino that fell, that caused all these other things to happen.

If you have ever read or heard of the children’s book, if you give a mouse a cookie, that is what this has become. A big decision was made about a shift in my business. And that domino kicked off. A whole bunch of things, and I am doing, we can get into these in detail, but just the over the big overview is I’m doing a huge pro uh, platform migration in my business.

I am doing a massive rebrand. I am building a new website. I am having brand photos taken to go with said rebrand. There’s all of these things now that are singularly big projects, but I’m doing them all at the same time.

Colie: All at once. It’s not a normal thing for you. I feel like. I feel like in the past you would’ve done these one by one.

You would’ve done the first one and then kind of integrated that into the second one. And Sabrina just basically said, fuck it this time. And she’s just doing all of them at once because she and I were recently in Chicago together. She was, you know, sharing some of these things with Anami who was also there with us.

And when she got to the website design, I like. I think I turned my head so quickly I almost broke my neck and I was like, wait, what? What do you mean you’re redesigning your website? I was, I was literally speechless. I think I started coughing. I was like, on top of everything else you’re doing your website.

Are you insane? But you know, in true Sabrina style is going excellent. It is going well,

Sabrina: honestly. It’s like, oh, well now I understand why this fall needed to be open because. These are all big projects with heavy lifts. Even though I have people helping me with different pieces, they still require a lot of me and.

They all need to happen at once, because you know what? When January starts, I’m hosting a retreat. I’m leading a mastermind group. I’m speaking at a conference, like I don’t have time or bandwidth for any of this in the spring. So it’s like, let’s get it all done now while we have the space and the capacity.

So it is a lot, but it does make sense to just do it all at once. So you guys, by the end of this year, or the first week in January. Literally everything’s gonna be new.

Colie: It’s gonna be brand new. All new and shiny when you’re shiny new car. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, are we gonna name things? I mean, maybe we should give your website and other things.

A name.

Sabrina: I love that. I love that. My car does have a name we could give, we could give things a name, so I’m okay with that. We can discuss off air. Um, so what about you recap where you’ve been since our last chat?

Colie: Yeah. So guys, this is kind of weird ’cause when Sabrina usually leads these, I don’t have to recap myself, but I’m in control this time.

So here we go. So the first thing that I talked about was the upcoming sales parade, which literally started a few days ago. At the time of this recording. When this episode airs, it will be done, but basically this is 14 days of talking about my offers at least four times a day. And one thing, I did it in July.

And I didn’t make a lot of sales during the parade, and that’s not the point. The point is to get you talking about your offers, not feeling icky when you’re asking for the sales, those kinds of things. And while I didn’t make a lot of sales during parade, I made a lot of sales after. So it was definitely a success from that perspective.

And it just started for October, and I’ve already filled two of my remaining four spots for systems in session. Then I’m gonna open up the new spots for 2026, but I feel like that’s like a future thing, so we’ll talk about that a little later. The one thing that I’m doing differently now that I didn’t actually talk about on the podcast specifically last time, but it was kind of in the back of my mind.

I was just mulling it when I did the sales parade in July. I didn’t do a single podcast episode related to the sales parade. I just aired guest episodes as normal. There was nothing that I did that was like during there to kind of promote the offers or promote the sales. I decided to go all in. This is currently day three, and I have done a sa, a solo podcast episode every day this week.

I’ve already recorded a few in the future and where I’m really highlighting like a part of Systems in Session, which is the offer that I am parading for this two week period. So that’s an update on that. Another update is at the time of last quarter’s call, I was actively selling email, like you mean it.

I had just finished a launch. My goal was to continue selling and it did. I still sold, I think another maybe six seats after we had our conversation, but I just finished another launch of email. Like you mean it, or I guess I’m still in the middle of it when we’re recording this, I have a couple more days where people can get a certain discount off.

But I’ve only sold two. And so I feel like we’re gonna go a little deeper into this, but it’s really interesting because I shared it with Kelsey, my launch coach. I also shared it with Emily, my business coach. Ironically, both of them came back with the exact same question when I kind of shared like a rundown of what happened in the first two phases of the launch.

That was people who participated in the challenge and then people who participated in the challenge. Plus the current wait list that I had. There were two different phases and I only sold two seats, and both of them said, well, how do you feel about selling two seats? And I was like, honestly, I’ve gotten so many hot leads, like absolutely hot leads and conversations for systems in session.

I just don’t give a shit. And that was what I told both of them. And they both like agreed. And you know, we started talking about how systems in session really is my signature offer now, and it lights me up. Sabrina has told me this many times. I sound way more excited about this than I have in the last few years of business.

But Emily was like, yeah, I just, I only care about you upgrading people from email like you mean it into systems in session. I actually don’t care how many people you sell that email course to now. We are kind of like going into why it is not selling. Is it a positioning? Is it the messaging? Because one thing that’s happening is with email, like you mean it, it is not an email marketing course.

But so many people, the minute that I say what it is, they’re like, oh, so you teach people how to write newsletters? And I’m like, no, absolutely not. Like this is your client communication inside of your CRM or you know, people who are wanting to work with you. So I do think that there’s a little bit of a positioning issue.

I also feel like client communication is not what people think is gonna make their systems and their client experience better. They think they need better workflows and I still think I’m not doing the best job or people are just not hearing it. When I say, yes, you need better workflows, but you are really not in a position to do that until you have the client communication in place.

Sabrina: Well, so my thought on that is, uh, we need to get our girl Brianna in here. Analyze your messaging based on your human design. ’cause there’s probably a disconnect there. That’s my first thought. We talked about that. Okay. So that’s my first thought, but then my, I had a conversation with her. Yeah. But then my second thought is like, like your coaches said, what if it.

Sure. Like let’s optimize the messaging, whatever like we want it to sell. But also, what if it just stayed what it was and you kept launching it? And it’s more of a visibility thing that’s like a, and just let it be what it is. If, if a handful of people drip in, cool, that’s a handful of passive income you’ve made, but that’s actually leading you to higher ticket sales.

Colie: Absolutely. And that’s where we’re at. So I’m still gonna talk about the client communication because it is a very big part of what we do in systems and sessions. And the really funny thing is that I’m gonna say this out loud and guys, if you’re listening, who this pertains to, you know I am talking about you.

There were several people that came to me after the email challenge and said, okay, Coley, I’m really thinking about buying email. Like you mean it, should I buy it? And I told three different people in the same day, do not buy it, which should tell you and I something about me telling people, no, this is not what you should buy.

In one case, it was that someone was already planning on joining systems in session. Later this fall. And so I was like, no, you don’t get the course in Systems in session, but we will be doing your communication if it is not done. You do get access, at least at the time of this recording to the systems professor, email assistant, to help you write those emails.

You do not get the whole course, but you get what you need to get it done inside of the bigger picture of getting all of your systems done while you work with me. So that’s what I told person number one. Person number two was like, oh, I really wanna buy the email course. And I was like, yeah, no. The emails that you have are good enough because she has templates from me.

She has templates from a different program that you and I that we know about. And I was like, you don’t need emails, you need workflows. Like she actually had at least what I would consider the bare minimum of what was gonna get the job done. And so if you’re gonna pay me a couple hundred dollars, I actually want you to do your workflows.

I don’t want you. To be revamping your emails, you are gonna get a bigger bang for your buck, a bigger ROI if you actually tackle your workflows. And then person number three was almost the same as person number one. She’s just worked with me before in a bigger capacity, and she’s like, I really want the email course.

And I’m like, yeah, but no, if you’re gonna join systems in session, like that’s just what you need to do. Make a decision on that. And if the answer is yes, do not buy the course. If the answer is no, then go ahead and buy the course. But like, what does that tell you? That I told three different people on the last day of the challenge.

Oh, I know you wanna pay me money and I’m willing to take your money, but really I don’t want your money for this.

Sabrina: Yeah. But you know what, that also, again, listeners, these, this is an off the cuff conversation. If, if Coley and I were boxing, I would tell her the same thing, a thought that I had, and I’m just curious.

All three of those people wanted one thing and you said no because they’re gonna do another thing. So in my mind, your audience thinks that these things go together. So what if that becomes part of the funnel? Like buy the course and then you can upgrade into the thing minus the price of the course, but also like systems in session.

Maybe it should have, maybe the course should be like a bonus that they can like refer back to or have. Are we on the same page? Is that why you’re laughing? We’re we’re on the same page and I had the

Colie: same conversation with Emily. I’m sorry I cannot stop laughing. I haven’t had enough coffee guys to like control my laughter.

So I had this conversation with Emily. Emily was like, okay. But like that tells you something like maybe email, like you mean it should be a prerequisite for systems in session. She’s like, maybe she’s like, I already want you to have a funnel which offers to upgrade them into systems in session a certain number of days or weeks after they’ve bought the course.

Like we thought about all of this and we had, you know, it’s intended to be put into place very soon, but I’m just laughing because we had all of the same thoughts and so that is where I landed. I

Sabrina: love that we’re all

Colie: on the same page. We’re all on the same page. Sabrina. It’s okay. It’s okay. This also brings me into another product that I wanna give a quick refresh to.

It is not that my audience does not know this, I just think your audience does not know this. So back in Q3, I launched a brand new offer. It was called Workflow FastPass, and it was an AI driven workflow implementation. So you answered an intake form and I, this is what I paraded last time until I just absolutely stopped selling it.

So you fill out an intake form. I run it through one of my AI assistants that builds workflows. I give it a human quality check and change anything that I feel the assistant missed or that I feel like should be added, and then I deliver it to you within 72 hours. Now, this was what I thought was gonna be my new.

Intro warmup offer. I was so excited about it. I built everything in 48 hours, like a full sales page. That is probably one of the best sales pages that I’ve ever written. I had an entire email sequence. It took me a while to get the intake form where I needed it, and after I opened it, I sold three and 48 hours.

Then I thought to myself, absolutely not. I’m not selling this anymore. That’s probably the quickest that I’ve ever pulled something off of the shelf, but it did teach me a lot. Number one. One of the things that I realized, and I think you guys all know, I’m Team HoneyBook. And I’m team ddo, but I do lean more ddo.

That offer is actually perfect for the Dato people. The way that workflows work in Dato. It is very easy for me to get the intake form exactly where I needed it and like to run it through the assistant and then give it a human quality check. Is nothing like that. Just works like magic. It is very straightforward.

It is not so straightforward with HoneyBook and Automation 2.0. There are just too many options. There are too many ways that you can set it up, and unfortunately what I discovered is that there really wasn’t a way for me to get the nuances on an intake form. Now, if I was having a strategy call with someone, which is something that I used to do, I used to do a workflow mapping call for $500.

If I was doing that, and you and I were communicating in real time and in real time, I could think of the additional questions that I needed to ask you in order to get it all laid out with the nuances included. It’s great for HoneyBook, but off of an intake form, no. I spent way too much time perfecting the ones that I delivered because ironically, all three of the people who bought it in the first 48 hours were HoneyBook users.

I think I was just like, okay, no. Number one, this is not as quick and easy as I thought it was gonna be. Number two, I decided that, no, I do not need to go back on what I said. Everybody needs to start with client communication, and I kind of felt like by offering the workflow, FastPass. I was getting people to say, oh yeah, that’s what I want.

But again, you weren’t really ready for that. You needed to work on your overall client experience and your client communication first. So I pulled that offer and put it back on a wait list. I still think that it was great for me to create it because it is now what I do for every person inside systems in session from the beginning.

So, I mean, all of that hard work was great. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve never pulled an offer that quickly. I was like, Nope, no more.

Sabrina: Do you think you’ll like that? It could make a, a comeback for like Black Friday for dubs auto only, or I think

Colie: it might eventually come back as something, um, I mean, I’m still, I still have the wait list.

And so, you know, every once in a while I will just send out an email, Hey, does anybody, you know, I’m opening five slots. Does anybody want this? And the last time that I did it, I was like, you can only purchase it if it’s dip. And I did have one person who took me up on that and I did it, and of course it was much easier than the HoneyBook version, but the person who bought it that time was also someone that I had worked with in the past.

And so I think part of it is I have a problem with me designing your workflows. If you haven’t really thought about the rest of your client experience first, I just don’t, in my gut, I don’t think it’s a good warmup offer. I don’t think that it’s the first thing that you should be attacking before you, for example, you know, create a five minute booking process.

Or before you make sure that your inquiry and your automated lead responses are done, or that you’ve, you know, thought about your touch points and your client communication for the whole customer journey. I just really don’t think that that needs to be the entry point, and so I need to stick to that.

Sabrina: So people shouldn’t even be given the opportunity to purchase until they’ve been qualified by something else.

That part, yeah. Yes, because

Colie: honestly, after email, like you mean it, oh, I, I will do your workflows until the, especially if you’ve already written all your emails. Like, I feel like that’s a great position point. ’cause you also design your client experience using one of my AI assistants inside of email.

Like you mean it. So I really do think that it’s a great offer after email. Like you mean it, but then that means I gotta work on getting people to buy email. Like you mean it and like you said. Is that really where I should be putting my energy, or should I just be putting my energy towards systems in session because I love it and it makes me way more money.

That’s something that’s,

Sabrina: you know, so for your listeners, they’re, they’re not gonna know unless I’ve said it. I don’t know if I’ve said on your podcast before, but I love to gamify stuff. I love to just try crap out and see what works and what doesn’t. And that’s the beauty of having created a bunch of offers is we can take ’em apart and mess around and try this and maybe the funnel starts with this one or this one or this other thing.

And you know, and so like you have these tools and this course that like you can play around with what order they get pitched and to who and when and what the price is and how it works out and, and all that. But maybe the workflow FastPass becomes something that’s like, yes, it’s Black Friday, but it’s only offered to a.

Specific segment of people who’ve already purchased X, Y, or Z, you know? Yeah. It’d be really interesting to see, you know, when you change who it’s offered to.

Colie: Okay. So I’m gonna give you guys just a quick rundown of the rest of my stuff, because then we’re gonna get into what she and I are both planning for Q4.

So other things. I was planning to start running paid ads. I am not. And and one of my coaches was like, actually, I don’t want you to run ads yet. So we’re actually thinking, because what I was gonna run ads to, that’s no longer the viable option, like based on where I’m taking things. So it was a strategic move.

It was not me avoiding, it was, Hey, I’m gonna create this ad today. And she was like, absolutely not. So okay. That was a no. Okay. The second thing that was on my list was that I was planning on joining Launch Your Own Way. And I’ve done that. I’ve been in Kelsey’s container for three months now and it’s great.

She has made me sell systems in session better, I think because her launch approach is not what we all consider to be open door, closed door for a digital course or product. She is a big advocate of doing it for services and so that has been super, super helpful. Last thing was that exploring my human design.

Yes, it took an entire quarter to get it done. I finally know what my human design is. I have had a conversation with Brianna and Sabrina and I have a podcast episode coming up. So I mean, I’m not gonna take any time today to talk about it, but that was on my list of things. I do now know my human design, and I have like started to implement some of these things in my business,

Sabrina: which is I literally cannot wait for that conversation.

I cannot wait to know if you are as obsessed as am I am as I am about like the nuances, and, and it’s gonna be listeners come back for that. It’s gonna be a really great chat. Are you ready to uplevel your photography business with more ease, profit and clarity? Root to Rise is my five month mastermind for female photographers who want to refine their systems.

Elevate their client experience, skip the burnout, and step into their next level with confidence. It’s a unique coaching experience that blends group support, one-to-one coaching and guest expert trainings. You can join online only or upgrade to include an absolutely incredible in-person retreat. The next round open soon and spots are limited.

So get on the wait list now at sabrina gehart.com/mastermind-waitlist.

Colie: Okay, so let’s hop into Q4. Now that we’ve done our Q3 kind of wrap up, um, what is on the horizon for you for the rest of 2025?

Sabrina: So short list of things. Uh, the quick things is, uh, like I said, I’ve got some new tiny offers that are going to be in a funnel, and I’m going to actually run paid ads to them. So this will be the first time that I’ve played with paid ads to or not.

Obviously, all ads are paid ads to a paid product. And I’m really excited about that. So I’m really excited about the, what the products themselves are, how they’re organized as far as the main product and upsell and a bump offer. I just, I’m, I’m really excited about it. So that’s gonna be a new thing that I’m testing out.

And again, I love to play games, so there’s like no pressure. I’m just like, I’m just gonna throw some money at this and see what happens. And, uh, I’m excited about that. Part of the rebrand new website thing is there’s. A lot of new messaging that’s happening and messaging refinement. I’m not gonna say what it is ’cause I want it to be part of the, the relaunch and, and exciting.

But I will say this, I am so excited about where it’s landed because I finally feel like I have a thing, and let me explain this, in the education space. You, the listener, have probably realized whether or not you realize it, that certain educators have, they have a thing, they have a thing they’re known for, or a phrase or a specialty or a whatever, like a catchphrase.

Like they, everybody’s got a thing and I have felt like I have not had said thing, and it has not necessarily taken away from any confidence that I had, but it hasn’t given me clarity in messaging and so. While working through this human design thing, something really fascinating happened and this all happened just actually, maybe it was three weeks ago, maybe even two weeks ago.

Very recently in this process I was working with Brianna on messaging on Route to Rise specifically, and something I was reading through some copy that she gave me in the deliverables and a particular statement jumped out at me and I just immediately like felt the hit of like. I’m obsessed with that.

Like, that’s it. That’s it. But I didn’t say any, I just kind of marinated with it. Right? But I really felt drawn to a particular statement. And let me tell you, this document was long. There’s a lot of words in it. So to say that a particular statement jumped out at me is pretty bold. So that happened then I was having a conversation a couple days later.

I was having a conversation with one of my one-to-one coaching clients. She was boxing me about something. Uh, we got into this conversation a little bit off tangent and she said, Hey, did you see that chat GBT prompt that’s been going around, um, on social media today? And I said, no, what is it? And she said, you know, you go into chat GPT and it’s something to the effect of knowing everything you know about me and my business, what is something that I might be missing?

She goes, I put it in mine and look what it popped out. It was so cool. And I was like, oh, fun. I’m gonna try that. And I put it in, I kid you not, the exact words that chat GBT spit out were the same thing that Brianna said in this document. And I was like, holy shit, this is happening. And I was so like, oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. That I took that and I forwarded it to Cassie, who was doing my rebrand, and she was just in the early phases of rebrand, and I said, this is happening. I’ve heard it twice now. Like, I think we need to run with this. And she sent me a voice note back and she said, do you want me to send you a screenshot for proof?

I already had that exact language written down for you without even knowing what you had just said. So it was literally like the universe is like, here’s your thing, here’s your thing. We’re all in agreement here. Here’s what your thing is. And I’m so excited about it. And we’ve been going down the rabbit hole of like, because you know me, like I like to really go, I’m already thinking so far ahead about like merch and taglines and what’s so good.

I’m so excited about it. So that has been really fun. But what it looks like for the fall and this whole rebrand website is like. Also, all of the messaging is changing, so it’s a lot of copy changes, changes to all the things that are tied to it. So it’s like you guys think about it. Updating all the freebies, updating all the, oh my gosh, updating all the slides for everything I’ve ever, oh my.

It’s like gonna be this never ending project. So that’s what I’m doing this fall, is I’m just like dotting the i’s and crossing the T’s to make sure everything in the platform migration gets moved. Everything in the rebrand gets done because I would love when everything launches for it to be as close to perfect as possible.

It’s a lot of details. You know, you and I have talked about this when we were in Chicago, but the platform migration is messy. It’s messy. I have been with Kartra for what? Yeah, almost six years now. Five.

Colie: I’m like, do you know how I know it’s five? Well, no. Do you know how I know it’s five because I’m doing the five year anniversary of CRM Blueprint, and you and I got Kartra at the exact same time.

Sabrina: Okay. So five years. And you know that we’ve had a lot of freebies and offers and challenges and things that have come and gone and everything, and I keep relating it to when you move. Like I’m cleaning out this one platform and there’s a lot of stuff that’s going in the trash, a lot of stuff that needs to be reorganized and renamed, and so it’s good in that it’s like a real solid clean out, but it’s also so many details to go through and take out all of the segments and all of the tags and all of the workflows and all of the products and all the coupon codes and all the affiliates and how they all tie together.

Oh my gosh. It’s so much. That’s exhausting. It is exhausting. But I, I would say, I think I’m two thirds of the way done with that now. Thank goodness. I have a VA who’s helped me. All the courses are moved over. Most of the workflows are moved over. The stuff that’s left is creating all the little products and making sure things are turned on correctly and testing the checkouts and, and all of that.

So we’re getting there. But fall for me is really just getting to the other side of this project. It’s just getting through the other side. Which is a lot because I’m doing a lot of the website myself. I’m having a professional do like the primary eight pages. But if you’re not an educator, you don’t realize how many freaking pages there are.

So I, I’m doing all of the other ones. It’s copy, customize, repeat, copy, customize, repeat. Yes, yes. So I’m gonna do all of those because just, quite frankly, this project that wasn’t even on my radar for 2025 was not on my Bingo card, is now. Really solidly into the five figures, and I’m crying a little bit inside.

So yeah, so I’m gonna do some of it myself just to make it more affordable, to be frank. So yeah, the

Colie: parts that you can do. You, I mean, exactly. And you know, you kind of gave yourself the space to do that because if you were currently doing Route to Rise, there’s no way you would do that. You would just, oh no.

Pay somebody to do it. No. Yeah,

Sabrina: yeah, yeah. I can, and I am versed enough and show it absolutely. To do it. Like, uh, a hundred percent. If I had even more time, I could do the whole thing myself, but I just don’t want to, so. Yeah. Yeah. So Fall’s gonna be. Fall is me kind of in the details, like in the weeds, in the internal stuff, doing a lot of things quietly behind the scenes.

Uh, and then obviously the last thing is I’ll be launching root rise here in a few weeks. At this point, it’s a fairly well oiled machine. Um, some minor changes need to happen to the sales page to update, you know, guests and dates and some things like that. Brianna did help me overhaul it copy wise for human design.

Uh, I need to write the emails and schedule them, but, uh, that’s pretty much ready to go. But energetically I will be in launch mode, um, late October, early November, so hopefully looking for a sellout in 2026. I would love to have all 20 spots filled, so just go ahead and put that out there. Yeah. So that’s, that’s it for me.

For the rest of the year. I’m taking on no more projects.

Colie: No more projects. Okay. You know what, you said it, it’s recorded, so. Mm-hmm. Uh, for me, it’s kind of ironic that I think the things that I work on in Q4 are the exact same things that I worked on in Q3. It’s just getting better, so I feel like. I love Systems in session.

It is my favorite offer I’ve ever made. I do think that it is the most successful for my clients because yes, a lot of them have had like some very big financial wins in terms of getting their systems set up, but it’s been like very reassuring. The number of them that are saying, I feel so confident with my systems because when I set them up for you, they work and they’re great and I’m setting them up based on what you need.

But I don’t know that my clients have ever just really said, I feel so confident with my new systems. Like that is definitely a result of the done with you versus the done for you. And in fact, I just had someone join Systems in session two days ago. She is somebody that I have done a full done for you for.

She also came back and did a refresh with me when she added a new offer to her business. Now she came back and what she said is, okay, Coley, I have been listening to your podcast episodes and I really think that I need systems in session. She’s like, these are the things that I would like to change in my current business.

This is where I’m going. And she’s like, should I join systems in session even though you set up all the original stuff for me? She goes, or are you still offering a refresh? Should I just get a refresh from you and you can do it for me? And I was at Chloe’s volleyball game when I got her email and I’m like, oh my God, this is the first person from Done for you.

That is like, should I join systems in session? And I wrote her back and I said, absolutely. I said, and here’s why. I think that you are going to have a new appreciation for your systems after you do them for yourself. And also the next time that you add an offer, I just don’t think you’re gonna need to come back to me.

You know it, it’s great that people wanna come back to me and kind of delegate it to me, but I don’t want that to be what you have to do. I don’t want that to be because you don’t understand how all the pieces work together and why we made the decisions that we made to prevent you from being able to make changes on your own.

And so she did end up join Systems in session, which is absolutely fabulous. I’m so happy about this. I have had a repeat person come back, but she was from the course. I just feel like that’s an entirely different beast coming from done for you to done with you versus DIY to done with you. Like now I’m gonna see both sides of the coin, but so I think Q4 for me is all about.

Refining what my result is going to be from systems and session, because I feel like where I’m going and how I’m structuring it now in October of 2025 is very different than the first two people that I had in April of 2025. I mean, I’ve gotten a lot more structure. They now have a hub where they can go like there things are very different.

I also feel like I’m continuing to collect client transformations, client results, and that’s helping me inform how I work with the clients going forward. And I’m really excited to say that, you know, it’s been fully booked for what I envisioned my capacity was since July. And as people have left, I have filled their seats and so that is amazing.

I have two more seats left to fill for 2025, and that is a slightly lower capacity for December because I don’t wanna, I don’t want anybody lingering. I am cutting everybody else on December 22nd. There is no one that is gonna continue into the holidays into the new year. I want everybody done. So these last two spots have to actually onboard by October 22nd, so that on December 22nd you are officially done so that I can just kind of have a clean break.

Take some time off for the holidays and then come back. So it’s just really gonna be continuing to work on this container. Now I will say something came up for me about a week ago, and it’s something that I’m still kind of working through. I feel like the reason that I took two years. To kind of work on passive delivery was, I was worried about my capacity.

What happens if I get physically ill and can’t work? And I feel like to a certain degree, I’ve kind of put myself back in that position where I’m back and done with you back in a lot of one-to-one services. But I think I finally learned my lesson because the way that I am building my capacity, the way that I am scheduling these calls, the way that I am communicating with my clients is I don’t think any of them would be surprised if they had a call scheduled.

And I’m like, guys, I can’t do calls today, but you know, we’ll get you back on for tomorrow or for Thursday, or you know, whatever it is. So I am. Working to make sure that my capacity does not overwhelm me. And so I do feel like that’s like a lesson learned, and so I’m very proud of myself and in the same respect.

I’m working on this program not to see if I can just increase my capacity to increase my capacity, but I do feel like there are some things in the program where I’m still doing them, or I’m still offering like three week, three days a week of calls when it, it probably can just be two, like, let’s be honest.

So I’m currently going through the data, like I’m looking at how many support tickets every one of my people submit, how many calls every one of my people schedule. So just looking at things like that. The second thing that I’m working on is email. Like you mean it. I gotta decide what to do with it. Like you and I just talked about that funnel.

I mean, I have a funnel where when they get two different freebies, it puts them into a funnel for the e, for the client communication course. So that’s in place, but like I need to work on the funnel that takes them from email, like you mean it into systems in session or potentially a workflow. FastPass as a downsell.

That’s my Q4.

Sabrina: I love that. I, I do have a question that I would love to clarify. When you’re talking about systems in session and you said. As people have left, new people have come in. Is that all happening, happening organically or do you have like a wait list system put in place?

Colie: So I have a wait list system.

So let’s see. The first kind of crop of people that left was in August. I had, I think three different people off board in the same week, and two of those spots were filled by the wait list. And then another one, like she literally found me on like a Thursday. She scheduled a sales call for, I think Monday because that was just the only available day that she had, and later that night she bought.

So I do have a wait list. Um, it’s not a big wait list yet, so one of the things that I’m working on is last two seats for 2025 need to sell, but then I’m building the wait list for Q1 of 2026 because anybody that does anything in systems, anybody that works with photographers, you know, Q1 is like, let’s redo all the things.

I mean, Sabrina is just doing her shit early, but everybody else is like Q1, let’s get a new website. Let’s redo my systems, let’s do all of the things. So I am planning on building a wait list and I, that is my plan. My plan is that to have a wait list big enough to where when someone leaves, I send them an email and I say, Hey, one spot’s opening, you know, in the next two weeks.

Would you like to discuss joining? Do you need a call? Here’s a video ask. You can ask me questions. So that is in play. It’s just not as big as I would want it to be, but like right now, I am talking about systems in session every single day for the sales parade. I would not be surprised if I came out on the other end of this with like a wait list of like 15 people.

That is, that is what I’m working towards

Sabrina: and, and so your plan going forward is to do the wait list in real time as opposed to certain times that you plan to launch the wait list.

Colie: Wait list will always be open. No,

Sabrina: but I mean like, like, like emailing that like, oh, there’s availability in two weeks, as opposed to I’m going to send wait list emails this week and then in this month and then in this month.

Like having it planned ahead of time.

Colie: Nope. I won’t plan it ahead of time because, oh, I guess this is one of the other new things that’s coming. People can renew. People can stay. Oh, cool. Okay. And one person already has, so then you won’t know. Okay, that makes sense. I won’t know. I can’t plan that far in advance because I don’t know who is going to want to stay inside of systems in session for like another 30 days, or if they’re gonna take me up.

On my support offer where they can just join and then when they don’t need the support anymore, they can cancel. So it’s not that I can’t really say I’m gonna have like five spots open in November, because if two people decide not to leave, I’m only gonna have three spots. So Yeah.

Sabrina: Right. Okay. So that’s like, it’s like my one-to-one spots.

Like I never really know what I’m gonna have until people make decisions. And that is gonna be coming up for me I guess this fall as I have. A handful of women who they wrap in November and so we’re gonna need to see like, are you renewing? Are you not renewing and then, you know, fill those spots or not.

So, um, yeah, I keep forgetting about that because my one-to-one spots are so long, you know, that it’s like I just work with them for it. ’cause it’s a minimum of six months and so I kind of like lose track of time almost at. Not good.

Colie: And that’s why like for myself, I kind of have to always be promoting the wait list because I’m always gonna have spots open and it’s, it’s not that I can predict exactly where it is.

And I also, I like to, I can’t think of the phrase, I like to stagger. There we go. I like to stagger people’s onboarding because when people onboard and when they offboard, that actually takes more of my time. They have a strategy call at the beginning. That’s an hour. And then I have to plan their workflows because that’s, that’s what the workflow FastPass became.

It became the first thing that we do in systems in session. So I need a little bit more time. And so in August I onboarded like three or four people in a week and I was like, never again. So that’s not happening again. Too much.

Sabrina: Yeah, too much. Okay. Interesting. Uh, yeah. So you saying that like you’re always promoting the wait list.

For that. That just reminds me, it’s just, it’s just a reminder. Sabrina, you need to do better about promoting one-to-one, because I really don’t talk about it and my coach has gotten onto me about that. My content strategist has gotten onto me about it. I have eight to one eight, one-to-one clients right now and it’s, it’s all happens organically, you know, which is beautiful.

Uh, ’cause I feel like when it does happen organically, those people have already decided they’re going to work with you. You know, there’s less, there’s not any convincing involved or, or anything like that. So, um, but I do need to somehow build that in to talk about it on the regular, so that there is always that perpetual interest when I do need to fill spots.

Colie: Also, I, I might be assuming, but do you have that built into off-boarding from root to rice? Well, only this

Sabrina: year. Okay. Did I do that? Because you know that there was the gap. Yep. There was the gap. So route to rise historically. Well, it does have a 40% return rate and so what normally happens is half the group re-enroll for the next round.

But ’cause I was not doing a fall, I wanted to give those women an option to continue in some way if they wanted to. And so there was an offboarding process this time. Do you just need a wrap up call? Do you want to continue in some capacity? And so a handful of those women did decide to continue on in one-to-one, which was beautiful and perfect.

So, uh, but normally that’s not part of the process. Uh, may, maybe it will be in the future. I mean, but it should be. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s, you, you know, what could potentially be coming for 2027 that I’m not ready to say out loud yet? And so there could be a timing change where it does become. Part of the offboarding process, but I’m, I’m not sure yet, yet that’s, that’s a discussion for maybe the Q1 2026 conversation.

Colie: Okay, so to kind of wrap up our business bestie chat for Q4, it sounds like both of us are not looking to add anything else to our plate. We’re just really looking to complete the projects that we’ve already started and kind of go into Q1. As restful as we possibly can. Yep,

Sabrina: yep. That’s the plan for sure.

I’m actually kind of looking forward to December because hopefully by then all of the projects are done except the website and you know, because you’ve done this before, that’s a lot of like sit in your office by yourself with your music, not talking to people, not distracted, just doing website stuff.

And that feels December to me. You know, it’s cold, you’re alone, it’s calm. So I’m kind of like, that’s almost restful because it’ll be less time with client facing stuff, promoting things. I won’t be launching anything. And so it’ll be very like, alright, just banging this website out, just getting it ready, you know?

Um, just kind of that deep project work, you know? So I’m kind of looking forward to that.

Colie: Yeah. Oh, you know what? The very big thing that I didn’t mention. What,

Sabrina: oh yeah,

Colie: I forgot about that too. I am doing a launch of the blueprint in November for the fifth anniversary. Yay. And so there, that’s not what I

Sabrina: thought

Colie: you were gonna say.

Okay. Well there are some exciting things coming with that. And part of that is my business coach and I are going back and forth on what is actually gonna happen to the blueprint. And so that is something that I am thinking about going into Q1 because again, like systems and session is where I want to spend the majority of my time.

I mean, so that is what each of us has planned, and if you are on the Shoot It Straight podcast listening to this, you know, all of this is totally normal for you. If you are on the Business First Creatives podcast, and this is the first time that you are hearing one of our business Bestie Chats, please come back in Q1 where you will get an update on all of the things that we talked about for Q4 as well as where we are going into Q1.

Again, we love having these business bestie chats. We would actually have these, even if it wasn’t on a podcast, we would just be going back and forth on Voxer, and they are literally the favorite podcast episodes that either of us do for either of our podcasts. So really, you should tune in, and if you are not currently a listener of Shoot It Straight Podcast.

Uh, go subscribe. That is my little pitch for Sabrina.

Sabrina: There you go. Thanks. I love it. I love that we’ve moved this over here and that both groups get to listen. Uh, my listeners know that. Uh, send us a dm. Let us know like what you thought was so shocking or exciting or you can’t wait to hear more about. Uh, it’s always so fun because.

We have similar audiences, but also different audiences and what they pick up on and things that we say. I don’t know, it’s just so fun to hear what people love about these chats and uh, they’re always like, oh my gosh, it’s so fun to just listen to you guys chat and we get so inspired. So send us the dm.

Let us know what you

Colie: thought. We would love it. Okay. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.

Sabrina: 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@sabrinagehart.com slash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gehart 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.