132: When Letting Go Is The Best Move

Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gebhardt. 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 too. The 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 friends. I’m so glad you are here today. I want to just dive straight in because I’m going to tell you a lot of personal stories and it ties kind of into what we were talking about last week. Last week on the podcast, we talked about saying no and how it is a true game changer in your business.

shared lots of examples, lots of stories. If you didn’t catch last week’s episode, go back and give that a listen today. I’m talking about similarly related to that topic. When letting go is actually your best move. And like I said, I’ve got personal stories galore to share with you about that. But specifically, I want to talk about what’s been happening in my business over the last eight months because I’ve been doing a lot of letting go.

If you are a weekly listener to the podcast, you’ve heard me allude to a couple of these stories before, but I’m going to really get into the meat of what was happening in my mind and in my business and why I made these decisions. And then I’m going to turn it around and inspire you and encourage you to consider when it might be the right opportunity for you to let go of something, what that could look like for you in your own business, in your own life.

I’m going to start off at the very beginning. I let go of a course last year. You have heard me say this on the podcast. I had a course called the aligned photographer. And actually prior to that, it was called something else that had been rebranded into the aligned photographer. This course had been in existence for about three years, maybe a little more, maybe three and a half years.

And this course is solid, like solid information. And how do I know that? Because I have been coaching female photographers for seven going on eight years at this point. I’ve coached hundreds. And this course was literally built up of the foundational questions that I get asked by almost everyone.

Doesn’t matter how long they’ve been in business or if they’re brand new. Doesn’t matter how much revenue they’re making. I was seeing the same foundational questions over and over and over and over again. And so I put it into a course. This course originally started under a different name. It was rebranded into the aligned photographer and the women who did go through that course loved it, raved about it, still talk about how that was a turning point for their business, which is amazing.

So I knew the content was solid. I knew that I knew like, I know what I’m talking about. I know how to coach women. I’ve been in their shoes. I have a lot of experience with it. That was not the problem for whatever reason. We’re not going to get into that today. It just wouldn’t get going. I had tried live launching it.

I had tried having it on an evergreen funnel where it’s for sale all the time. I had tried doing a webinar. I had tried all of these things and it just wouldn’t get going. It just never picked up speed. And it’s frustrating because you may not know this, but as someone who creates what is meant to be passive content or a passive product.

It’s never truly passive because you have to market it in the future, but you want to sell the heck out of that thing because you put a lot of time and energy and hard work into building this thing and it just would never get going. Well, last spring I launched the aligned photographer again, a public launch, a live launch where webinar this time, I did a challenge, a free challenge where people were invited to participate in a training all about pricing and it was.

Several days long and it would come and I would coach them through different steps of pricing, and then they would ask questions and it was really great. I hadn’t done a live launch of that course in a really long time and so it felt really fun and exciting to do that again because I do love coaching people in a real time environment.

It makes my heart so happy to engage with people and answer questions and that part went great. I had run ads to the challenge and there was tons of new people on my email list and tons of people signed up for the challenge. The challenge was really well attended and it was really well attended by a lot of new to me faces and names and uh, that went great.

And then the challenge ended and the course was open for sale and no one bought it. So that was a huge fail. And I decided at the end of that, you know what? This is done. We’re done here. I cannot continue to drag this course along in hopes that one day it takes off and start selling. I just can’t do it anymore.

It doesn’t matter that it was, that it’s a great course. It doesn’t matter that it helps support people, that it’s full of all kinds of valuable information. If it’s not getting off the ground, something about it or the marketing or the name or whatever is not landing with my audience and I can’t change how it’s received.

I set it down. I decided that’s it. We’re retiring it. All of the, the course still exists in the world for the students who did purchase it at one time or another, they will have lifetime access to that course. I’m not deleting it, but it’s not for sale anymore. And I’m not pushing it anymore. It’s not on my website.

It’s just gone. And I’m, I am so good with that. And here’s what I want you to hear. I had been dragging this thing for a while for years, and it was making me feel like a failure. It was frustrating me. It was this running constant negative energy. Like when there’s a fly around your head and it won’t go away and it’s just annoying the heck out of you.

It was like that and had all of these other things that were selling well and that were going well in my business. And this one thing, this stupid passive thing would not take off. And so I finally decided to set it down. And it was the most freeing effort to set it down. I talked about it with my business coach and she fully agreed with me and I just released it and it was, it was like taking the biggest weight off my shoulders.

I was not carrying any shame around it. I was not carrying any disappointment around it, any, you know, of the coulda woulda shouldas around it. I just was like, we’re not, we’re not doing any of this, anything anymore. We’re moving forward. You know, I, for whatever reason, it wasn’t working and that’s fine, like, okay, we’re done.

So I released it. Here’s what I want you to hear. Within a week of releasing that and the freedom and the brain space, it cleared up a new idea emerged. And this idea was so clear and so energizing that it like it couldn’t pour out of me fast enough. I was so jazzed. So what came from that was I took quick action because I was in the flow.

Okay. If you’ve ever heard someone talk about that before, when you are in the flow, you are happy, you are excited, you are passionate. Your creativity is rocking and rolling and you’re firing on all cylinders. It’s like you’ve never worked so hard and so fast, but in like the best way. Uh, that’s what it feels like to be in the flow and that’s where I was.

And very quickly, I put together a challenge group, which I had never done before. Part of this was an idea from my content strategist, Jaden, shout out Jaden. And, uh, we put together this challenge group and we were like, how, how, what’s the easiest way that we could. Get people interested in talking about this new topic to prepare them for selling this new thing.

And so we were like, let’s do a challenge group. There’s no sales page. There’s no registration form. There’s no anything. It’s literally like, Hey, you want to be in this group? Cool. Come join us on Instagram and a group chat. That’s all it was. And so many people joined like so fast. It was awesome. And I created a 30 day marketing challenge, which again, it was pouring out of me.

You may hear me say that and think you created 30 days worth of marketing content and it was easy. Yes, it was easy. Number one, I love marketing, so it is easy for me, but number two, I was in the flow. It was literally pouring out of me. I created this challenge and basically everybody that joined participated in this Instagram group and they were able to ask questions and share wins and get excited and all of that.

And it was so fun. It was such an engaging group. And basically I gave them 30 days worth of marketing prompts and ideas so that they didn’t have to think about marketing for a whole month. The challenge went better than I ever could have imagined. Everybody was obsessed with the content. They were having so much fun with it.

It was just really, really great. They were asking great questions in the group, which was giving me the opportunity to answer questions. And if you’ve ever sent me a DM on Instagram, you know, I probably responded via voice DM because I love to talk to people. And so it was just a really great experience.

And then at the end of that challenge. I told that particular group only before I told the public, I told that group about this new course that I had created, marketing that attracts, and because we had been talking marketing all month, they were really primed and excited for this offer. And so a very large majority of them decided to join the course and because they were in the challenge group, they got a discount and all that.

And, uh, they were the guinea pigs, so to speak, for a couple of weeks before I opened the course to the public. The course was fully formed and fully built and everything was in there. So they weren’t guinea pigs on that, but they were able to, you know, let me know if any of the links are broken or if any of the downloads don’t work or let me know if you have questions that I need to address that kind of thing.

And then a couple of weeks later, I opened the marketing course for sale to the public. And between those two things. Selling the course to the challenge group and then selling the course to the public. I was on vacation during all of that. Uh, we were in Colorado for three weeks and it was absolutely beautiful.

Uh, we go there every summer and that is my happy place. Maybe you’ve heard me say that. Maybe you haven’t. I like Colorado in the summer is literally heaven on earth to me. And I am like Colorado, Sabrina is different than Sabrina everywhere else. I just, I, I get out of the car when we get there and my whole body just, it’s like the whole, all the energy shifts.

I’m just a totally different person. Anyways, we were in Colorado at the time and you know, I had scheduled all the emails. I had scheduled all the social media, so I wasn’t, I was present online, but I wasn’t like working really. And for the first time ever, I was. Making all of this money while I’m like on hikes.

And with my family and taking afternoon summer naps during the, you know, summer storms in the mountains and attending 4th of July parades and all of that. And it was so cool because seeing all these people join and the, the excitement people had around the course and people sharing about it and all of this was such positive feedback from the universe that like.

Look what happened when you finally set this thing down, you made room for something that you didn’t even know was in you and look how well it’s going. It was such a rewarding feeling. It was such positive reinforcement. And here’s what I want you to hear. I had more people join that course in the first month that it was open than I had joined the other course.

In all of the years, it was opened combined. Okay, so when I tell you that, that this was such a, like a God wink, a universe is pat on the back. That’s, that’s exactly what it was. It was energetically so magic. And here’s the thing. That was the first thing that I released last year that I gave up, that I said no to, that I sat down.

I decided to stop carrying this course around and to stop carrying the guilt of having this, but I have this passive thing built. Shouldn’t I spend time and energy on getting it sold? I can’t tell you how many times I had that discussion on coaching calls with my own coach. I finally set all that down, cut through the BS and something magical came forth out of me making that choice to, to release and let go of something.

And that was a real game changing lesson for me because historically I am not a set things down and let go. I’m a pick up as much as possible kind of girl. I love, you’ve heard me probably say a million times, I love to do things. I love to be productive. I have a higher capacity for moving parts in my life than a lot of people do.

Even the things that are working in my life and my business, I have a million moving parts. That’s who I am. But this was the first time in a really, really long time. In fact, I can’t even remember before that, that I had chosen to set something down and let go of it. And seeing the reward on the other side, it was like a light bulb went off.

It was like a, a switch was flipped. And I was like, okay, okay. I see now the magic of releasing things. And honestly, that decision kind of. Kicked me off into a season of releasing other things. I want to interrupt this episode to tell you about a totally free 21 day challenge that is starting very soon.

So one of the questions I get asked the most as a business coach is about marketing. Photographers are constantly asking me how to get more inquiries from ideal clients, how to make social media actually work for them and how to feel more effective and consistent in their marketing. And while they’re asking these questions, I often hear the same frustrations.

Marketing feels tedious. Nothing seems to work. I can’t stay consistent. It’s overwhelming. My friend, if that sounds familiar, I have something so exciting to share. I’m hosting a free 21 day marketing challenge in March called Magical Momentum, and I want you to join us. Here’s how it works. You’ll get 21 days of fresh done for you marketing prompts designed to help you show up with ease, connect with your ideal clients and get out of that marketing rut.

And the best part, you won’t be doing it alone because we will have a group Instagram chat where you can cheer each other on, share your wins. Stay motivated and ask questions. If you’re ready to build momentum, make marketing feel fun again, and connect with your ideal clients in just 21 days, join the challenge at sabrinagebhart.

com backslash challenge. Let’s make marketing magic together this March. So after I released that course and decided not to sell it anymore and set it down and move on, I did some other things. After that, I decided to, when I was looking at this year at 2025, I knew I was going to do root to rise in the spring.

I always do a January run and it goes January through May and all of that. But for the first time in a while, and in a few years, I decided that I was not going to do a fall 2025 group of the mastermind. The past few years I had done both spring and fall and on paper, this is a really dumb decision because as you can imagine, it’s one of my highest ticket offers and deciding not to do a second run of it is a lot of revenue that I am turning down, so to speak, or walking away from, so to speak.

And in that sense, it doesn’t really make sense on paper. Root to rise makes me money. It is, it is profitable. It sustains me. It’s, you know, it’s one of the big revenue drivers in my business. And so for me to look at the year 2025 and say, you know what? I’m only going to do this once. It gave me pause when I first started thinking about potentially releasing and letting go of a second run this year, because again, on paper, it doesn’t make sense.

You know, we all have aspirations of like increasing our revenue year over year and all of that. And here I was saying, I think I’m going to put down this huge chunk of revenue and I don’t know what that’s going to do. And I thought about it and I thought about it for a long time and I talked about it with coaches and talked about it with peers and intuitively I just knew that that was the, that was the decision.

I knew intuitively, instinctively in my gut and my heart, I knew that. In 2025, I cannot do a fall run of RootRest. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be that way every year. Maybe it will moving forward. But for this particular year, for right now, I am not doing fall. You know, it’s only February right now. I can’t tell you how that’s going to shake out, but I’m confident in my decision.

I’ve moved past the fear and the worry and the unknown, and I am trusting that my intuition is right for whatever reason. I probably won’t know until we get to the end of the year. Maybe something else is coming. Like in my last example, when I let go of a course and something else was birthed, that was better.

Maybe something else is coming this fall, or maybe I’m just supposed to have more time with my family, or maybe it’s both. I don’t know. But after going through the first experience of letting go of that course that wasn’t working and then seeing something beautiful birthed on the other side of it, I am not scared to let go of something else.

So that was one of the first things that I did was trusting that I was getting that intuitive hit to set down fall 2025 route to rise and trust that something else is coming and trust that it’s going to be better. Now, I know that a lot of you listening are not, are just, you’re, you’re photographers.

You’re not in the education space and you might be thinking, this is all great, Sabrina, but what does this have to do with me? So I’m going to leave you with a couple of thoughts and another example. One thought I have for you, what are you holding onto in your offer suite that you are afraid to let go of?

What are you holding onto in your offer suite that you’re afraid to let go of? Maybe it’s an offer that like my route to rise, it looks great on paper. It makes you a lot of money, but in this particular case, you dread it or it doesn’t feel good anymore. Or maybe it’s an offer that you think you have to have.

The world is telling you, your competitors are telling you, your clients are telling you, you’re supposed to have this offer. You’re supposed to do this thing because everybody else does it. But secretly, it makes you cringe. Secretly, it’s your least favorite thing. Secretly, you would give anything to not do it, but you think you have to.

What are you holding on to in your offer suite that you are afraid to let go of? Here’s the example that I have for you. The third thing that I let go of that I released last year during this season of releasing was last summer. It was July. It was the tail end of our Colorado vacation. And I was supposed to be launching fall mini sessions.

I have been in business for 14 years. I have always launched fall mini sessions in July. That’s what I do. I have the launch process down to like very well oiled machine. The emails are written. I just know I could do it in my sleep at this point. I’ve done it so many times. You know, I’ve always sold them out.

I’ve always made a good chunk of money doing them. I can almost guarantee which families I know I’m going to see every fall. That’s just the way it is. But last summer, and again, this was very recent after, you know, launching this new course and all of that. I was like having a lot of internal pushback on launching.

Like I just didn’t want to do it. I was dragging my feet on getting the dates set. I was dragging my feet on booking the studios. I was dragging my feet on writing the emails. And I could tell that I was dragging because there was like an internal battle that like, for whatever reason, I was like that angry toddler who doesn’t want to leave the play date, but you’re like, we have to go cause I have to get dinner going.

And you’re like dragging them out, kicking and screaming. Like that’s what I physically felt like. And I didn’t know what was going on. And for a minute I thought, Oh, I’m just feeling this way cause I’m on vacation. I should’ve gotten this done before we left town. And I didn’t. And now I’m pissed and I’m on vacation.

I don’t want to do it. Right. For a couple of days. I thought that’s what was going on. And then I was like, you know what? I’m going to Vox on my coach and I’m going to talk through this with her. And so I did and she gave me just such beautiful, profound advice and we talked through it and I got to kind of some underlying thoughts I had that were running in my head about who’s my identity if I’m not a photographer, what will happen to my business if I don’t do fall mini sessions.

But what will happen financially if I don’t do them, there’s just all these things involved. And we talked through a lot of it. And after that conversation, I waited another day or two to just let it sit in my body and mull over the words and, and all of that before making my decision. But I ultimately decided not to do fall mini sessions for the first time in 13 years.

And I did not say that I’m not going to photograph families. I just said I’m not going to launch into this whole fall mini session calendar release situation. Get a bunch of people to book on a bunch of dates, all that. I’m not doing that. If people email me wanting to book a session, I will book a full session with them if I am available and if not, okay.

And I just kind of left it. Up in the air at that point, I was like, listen, I’m not doing fall mini sessions. And so I wrote an email to my audience. And I let them know that, you know, this is the availability I have left, which side note, when I decided not to do fall mini sessions, I went and looked at my calendar and actually had very little availability anyways.

And so I sent a list, an email to my list and I gave them my availability for fall family sessions and told them there would not be fall minis this year. And then I just left it, left it in the hands of the universe said, you know what, if I’m supposed to make this money up, I’m going to make it up somehow.

If I’m supposed to photograph families this fall, I’m going to photograph them somehow. We’re just going to let this be what it is, but I am not doing many sessions this year. I was confident in that decision, but I was nervous with how it was going to shake out. Well, like I said before, with the marketing course, it was like a God wink.

It was like a universe patting me on the back within two days of sending that email to my list. Several people had, were several of my favorite clients had responded with. Awesome. Love it. Let’s book a full session. And so they were snagging full sessions, which, you know, is I think more fun because I get more time with them.

I get to go to their home. We, you know, the galleries are better, uh, we don’t have to rush, but also I’m making more money. But the beautiful thing was I got so many new client inquiries from Google for drum roll, please. First 48 sessions. What does that mean? Well, unless you, you’re like an OG listener, you probably don’t remember, but first 48 sessions are my top number one favorite session of all time.

I would honestly, I would do them for free. They fulfill me creatively like nothing else. They are so easy for me because the most common hospital that babies deliver in my area is literally down my street. I could walk to it. So I am like door to door 45 minutes, like from sitting in my desk to sitting at my desk afterwards, 45 minutes.

So easy, but they make me so happy. And I always think to myself that I want to do more of them. Like I could never do enough of them. And I was getting all of these inquiries from Google for first 48 this last fall. And it was just, it was just that little wink from the universe that was like, cool, you’re not going to do family mini sessions.

We’re going to give you what you really want to do. And so it felt so good to just to have that quick win of you made the right choice. So I can tell you now that, you know, it’s in February, fall 2024 is over. I ended up having exactly the number of sessions I should have had. I did several families. I did lots of newborns in first 48, which those are just truly where my heart is.

And it was so wonderful. And there were so many times last fall where I was exhausted from coaching a mastermind last fall. I was also coaching the education blueprint. I also had several one on one clients. And I would be relaxing with my family on a Saturday thinking, gosh, I am so thankful I’m not doing many sessions today because I don’t have it in me.

So trusting my intuition totally paid off. And maybe there’s something similar for you. Maybe there’s something similar that you are holding onto in your offer suite. Maybe it’s not many sessions, but is there something that you’re holding onto that you are afraid to let go of? Another thing that I want you to hear from this, these stories that I’m telling you, couple little extra bonus nuggets, so to speak, that, you know, the meat of this episode is letting go, and when it’s the best move, even when it’s scary.

Okay, that’s what I really want you to take away. But if I were to give you two extra little bonus things, it’s this. What can you do to make it easier to make money while you are on vacation, hanging out with your family, sleeping in on Saturday morning? What can you do? Can you make sure that your client experience is buttoned up as far as automations and workflows with schedulers and all of that?

Maybe it’s getting into passive product sales or affiliate marketing, but like, what can you do? What work can you do now up front to help you make money? When you’re not working, think about it because it’s such an incredible feeling. And then the last little bonus nugget is, can you tighten up your marketing so that you’re reaching the right people who are ready to buy from you instead of just price shoppers who are wasting your time?

Because when your marketing is fine tuned and buttoned up and you’re reaching the right people. Them booking with you or buying your thing is quick and easy. It is not painful. It is not back and forth. It is not, oh, well, can you give me a discount? It’s none of that. They love you. They love your work.

They are fully aligned. They’re in purchase or buy or, you know, schedule the session or whatever. What about your marketing needs to change so that you’re reaching the right people? Because those people are out there. I promise. My friend, I hope that this episode and these stories has been encouraging to you.

I hope that you’re inspired to look at your offers and look for opportunities to release what’s not right for you. Even if you’re terrified, trusting your intuition will always, always, always pay off. And just like any habit that you want to build or get better at, the more you do something, the easier it gets.

The more you trust your intuition, the better things will get. And, and these stories are a perfect example of that. It’s a huge lesson that I learned last year and I’m so thankful for it. I can tell you with absolute certainty. When you trust your intuition and you make moves toward that, even when it feels scary, there’s better things ahead.

I promise. That’s it for today. My friends. See you next time. 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.