147: Sustainable Scaling with Jillian Dolberry

Sabrina: On today’s episode of the Shoot It Straight podcast, I have guest Jillian Alberry with me, and we are talking about sustainably scaling your business. And honestly, this chat probably doesn’t go quite where you want it to go, but listen, when I say this, it goes where it needs to go. We talk about the difference between growth in your business and scaling.

And how to know when you’re ready to scale, what has to happen first before you can take those steps towards scaling your business. And then we talk about what those first steps are and what it looks like to get ready to make that leap. I promise you this conversation has some incredible nuggets that you are going to take away.

So buckle up, get out your pen and paper and let’s jump 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.

Welcome back to the Shoot at Straight podcast, my friends. Today I am joined by a brand new guest and we’re diving into something, uh, really exciting that I am looking forward to chatting about. But before we get straight in, my friend, will you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Jillian: Yes. Thank you for having me, Sabrina.

So my name is Jillian Alberry and I am an online business manager, business consultant. Really just geek out over operations and leadership and team and all of the fun things that make the business run effectively. So I am a mom of two and also a business partner to my husband. We have a real estate business together and you know, Sabrina, you and I were talking before this about crazy life.

We are always on the go with sports and all the things, so that takes up the bulk of our energy. And running this business and running our other businesses is definitely fun into the mix as well. But. I love working with women who have really just kind of gotten to an energy ceiling in their business. I.

And have realized that their energy is finite and maybe the way that they are currently operating is not super sustainable. And then figuring out how to simplify those things so that they can scale forward.

Sabrina: Yeah. Oh, I cannot wait to chat about this because. I think this is something that everybody needs to talk about, you know, like, and it’s not something you think about when you start your business, right?

Like most of us start a business because we’ve fallen in love with something we’ve, we’ve stumbled across something that can be monetized in a way, and in. The case of the listeners, you know, we, most of us started with a hobby that we love and we realized, wow, we can make money doing this thing that we really, really enjoy.

And that fills fulfills us creatively too. But we don’t start that business with kind of the end in mind. We just start it with like, I love this thing and I could use the money. Let’s go. Right? But then you get to a point where it’s like, wait a minute. Like, like you said, my time is finite. My energy is finite.

I’m now realizing that things aren’t going as sustainably as I had hoped. Then that’s when a little bit of like fear and nerves comes in. So I’m super excited today that we are gonna talk about scaling and sustainably scaling a business and what that can look like. And I love to start the podcast interviews with guests when we’re doing a topic like this with a little bit of fundamentals.

So will you just explain. What does it mean to scale a business?

Jillian: Yeah, so scaling really means growing revenue without proportionally increasing your time, energy, and resources. When we think about growth and growing your business, ultimately that means somewhat more work. And so scaling really leverages without losing something else in return.

And so that’s why scaling versus growth, it’s like they, we kind of use them interchangeably, but. Growth is something that I feel like happens. Scaling is something that we have to choose because it doesn’t happen organically. And really what I’ve, what we’ve done in, in working with our clients and really digging into what makes a business eligible for scaling properly is you’ve gotta have aligned decision making.

You have to have quick delegation when it’s appropriate, and you’ve gotta have deep connection with your business. And so it all kind of starts with those three things to be able to impact what you’re currently doing to be able to scale moving forward.

Sabrina: I do think you’re right that there, there is this common misconception in the terminology that growth is the same thing as scaling, and that’s definitely not true.

Growth is just making forward progress, right? Like your, again, going back to the photographer example, I. You are photographing more clients, or you’re raising your prices, or you’re fine tuning your offers. Like those are things that are growth, but those all require our time and our energy, right? They’re things that we are actively working on, but scaling is a whole other thing.

I’m curious. Maybe we’re getting a little ahead of the conversation, but is there like a, an obvious time when you’re ready to scale, when you realize that you have kind of maxed out on the growth side of things and now it’s time to start thinking about scaling? I

Jillian: would say

Sabrina: before you

Jillian: sit, before I go into that, I wanna mention that I think growth can be.

Reactive, right? Like it’s a reaction out of something that we’ve done, or maybe it just happens organically or a season comes up and we experience some growth in our business. But scaling is more of a proactive measure because you have to make hard decisions to be able to scale. And when people decide that it’s time to scale.

Typically we decide it’s time because we’re burnt out and there’s something inside of us that’s like something is a little bit off. Scaling doesn’t typically happen alongside of growth in a parallel lateral way. It’s, it’s something that we have to choose to do, and it comes from the way we treat our business, the way we run our business.

And so. If for some people I would say they probably have the idea that they want to scale, but until our feet are to the fire and we have to figure out a way to do it better, to be able to do more, that’s kind of the point of tension that we get to when we decide

Sabrina: it’s time. I think what I’m hearing is it’s almost like a do or die situation.

Like it. This is, it’s gotta happen now. I can’t go on. In my business, the way I’ve been running it anymore, it’s time to make some hard decisions to move forward. Would you say that’s right?

Jillian: I

Sabrina: would, yeah. And I don’t think

Jillian: that that’s how we look at it all the time. I think that a lot of people say, I’m ready to scale my business.

But until we are put in a situation where we have to take action, that’s hard because listen, we all will avoid a hard conversation for the life of us. Okay. Right? That’s right. We’ll put off the hard text message, the hard email, the one that we’re like overthinking constantly. And so our, like our bodies are trying to survive in our world and so.

We, our brains and our bodies are gonna tell us, oh, well maybe you shouldn’t do that yet, or We’re gonna procrastinate certain things. But really the act of scaling has to happen when we are in a really humbled place and can make the decisions to be able to scale. Because no one going into business, especially like the way that you described it, where it’s like, we love the thing, we’re gonna do the thing, we’re gonna bring in some extra cash, and then we get to a point where we’re like, oh my goodness, this is actually.

Working. This is exciting. I’m seeing growth, but then we get to a point where we’re like. We’re closed in a box and we can’t go any further until we address the sustainability piece, which turns into a scaling conversation.

Sabrina: Okay. I love that so much. And I think already it’s, it’s so eye-opening to hear the very clear, distinct differences, not only in what the two are, but how they feel.

And when we kind of reach those places, I think a lot of listeners can resonate with. Being in both of those spots. We do have a lot of beginners that are earlier in business, but then we, there are a lot of seasoned business owners that listen, that are ready for like that next level. And they are either in or have been in recently the shoes that you’re saying where they’re like, okay, something’s gotta give.

I’m at my breaking point here. I wanna keep going, but I can’t keep doing it like this. I don’t know what that looks like. So again, a lot of the listeners of the Shoot It Straight podcast are photographers, and I know because I coach a lot of these women that they love the idea of scaling. They, I love the all do, right?

They love the idea of making more money without putting in more like client facing hours. Um, that sounds kind of like the dream, right? But I’m sure, because I’ve heard this, that a lot of listeners think that in being a photographer. In order to quote unquote scale, you need to step into education, right?

That you need to now start offering these, these courses that are prerecorded and these downloads and these tiny offers and all of this and that. That’s the way with air quotes to scale. As a photographer, what do you have to say to that? I

Jillian: really, let me just like be totally vulnerable. I really struggle with.

The question, well, I, I ask the question even my, in my own business time after time, what could I do next? What could I bring to the table that will bring more money or expand my reach or something like that? And truly, I think that we get a little, we think that scaling means doing more to be able to scale means more money, which means we have to do more to bring in more money or we have to do something different, but.

What we do and what we learn based off of studies that we’ve done with different people is that scaling actually happens after we simplify a little bit. I wanna get to what you’re saying about the education piece because that’s definitely an option and I, and I think that I could give you a to, we could ask chat, GPT, what is a list of ways that photographers could continue to grow their business?

Scale it, add something more, offer something different to grow their business. And truly it will come up with some great ideas. But the tension that we all come to is that, okay, those are all great ideas, but how do I implement them when I’m already burnt out, when I’m already at my max capacity? When we may have a million dollar idea, but we can’t take action on it in a piece filled way where we have the margin to make value-based decisions and take action on it, then.

That million dollar idea is gonna be hinder. It’s gonna hinder growth. It’s not gonna actually allow for that scalability piece. I feel like the conversation, instead of it being like, well, what are my options? I think we have to look inward a little bit more and say, how can I simplify and do what I’m doing better, more aligned, more value-based?

More simplified in what makes sense for my business in this season to create the margin to be able to do something more. Now, when we talk about like specific ideas, like absolutely we can, you know, dig into what those options are, but when you create the margin. You can then choose a thing that it, it doesn’t have to be education.

It could be courses that, a different way of doing courses. It could be podcasting, it could, it could be whatever you decide, but you have to make the decision of something that aligns most with you, not just what is put in front of you. Does that make sense?

Sabrina: Yeah. And I really love how you pulled it back to having the margin to do the thing.

That’s something that I talk about all the time. It’s like, and not even with scaling with other things. Right? Uh, I have a coaching program called Root to Rise, and it’s a five month mastermind that is very intensive. And when we have enrollment open, I get a lot of questions about like, well, when are the calls and what are the topics?

And I always try and bring it back to the women that listen. I can literally guarantee that you will have a big transformation if you have the margin to have the transformation. And so I’m telling them. It’s not just about coming to the call for an hour a week. It’s about having the margin to Voxer with me on a weekly basis and open up and get vulnerable.

Having the margin to then take what we’ve talked about and implement it so it’s not just one hour a week, it’s you need a lot of time and also bandwidth to process everything we’re learning and the women who are willing to set other things down. To go through this program are the women who come out on the other side and you’re like, holy cow.

The transformation is wild because they did the thing. ’cause they had the margin. So it’s something that we talk about a lot that you can have, like you said, you can have all of these incredible ideas, but if you don’t have the time, like the actual time in your calendar or the mental bandwidth to think through them and get creative and allow yourself to get in flow and to build the thing.

It doesn’t matter. It’s like you said, it’s gonna hinder you. And honestly, Jillian, like I have absolutely lived through this before. A hundred percent. I think we all have.

Jillian: Can we just say like we’re all on an equal playing field? We have all struggled with this.

Sabrina: Yes. And as a creative, it’s really. Like a come to Jesus uncomfortable time because you’re like, I’m feeling so on fire to build this thing.

And you feel so physically torn by the fact that you are tied to all these other commitments that you already have, and you still wanna be a good wife and mom and all of that, but you’re like, but I really wanna be doing this thing. And then it’s this negative. Snowball effect because then you’re getting frustrated at yourself and down on yourself, and you’re losing sleep and it’s ugly.

What do we do about that? What do we do? What’s the first thing that needs to happen when we realize we’re in this tough space? Or maybe we’re really inspired to do something new? How do we get that margin?

Jillian: Yeah. I honestly think, and this is something everybody can do. I think the first step is to block off 30 minutes and just take a pause, think about what your business means to you.

And what it means to other people and why it exists. It doesn’t exist to only provide a paycheck for you. It doesn’t exist to only provide pictures. We’ve got to dig into that deep connection of what our business actually is and what it exists to do, to be able to know how we take a step forward, where we start, where we simplify.

I really do feel like if we can. Block off a little bit of time and take that purposeful pause and reconnect with the mission of all of it, then our headspace will get so much clearer. And if it’s not clear yet, keep doing that practice. We have to quiet our minds and our thinking. To be able to hear what the next step is.

And that is a practice that feels a little uncomfortable because we have so many demands and oftentimes we don’t even allow ourselves to do that because it almost feels selfish. Well, 30 minutes just to like sit here. I could be doing the dishes, I could be doing the laundry, I could be texting a client.

I could be, you know, sending an a new album to somebody. Whatever it is for you, you will always find something to. Put in that time slot, but for the lifeblood and the health of your business and the scalability of it, and for yourself, you have to create. White space, you have to create some kind of margin, and it starts somewhere.

So even if it’s 30 minutes a day, if it’s 30 minutes a week, if it’s 30 minutes on a Sunday afternoon because maybe everyone’s taking naps, or maybe no one’s taking naps, it doesn’t matter. Give yourself that time to just take a pause to reconnect with the deep values of why you’re doing it in the first place.

Sabrina: Yeah, I love that. And white space is something that I talk about all the time because just in general, we don’t have enough of it. And that white space is, it’s so multipurposed, you know, it allows us, like you said, the mental bandwidth to just kind of process things and to think about things. Where are we going?

Where do we wanna be? What are, why are we doing what we’re doing? But it’s also like the nervous system reset. And as creatives, we can’t. Come up with the next thing or have those creative hits of inspiration when we are go, go, go. Like, that does not work. That’s why children have such imaginative play when they’re bored, because that’s where those, that’s where that creativity is birthed.

And so I tell my people, and I’ve said it on the podcast many times, like you need to have. I, I am more, I’m more strict than you are, Jillian. I’m not like 30 minutes a day. I’m like, I want you to have like a, a half a day a week where it’s yours. It’s yours to, you know, go on a walk, read a book, sleep in, not work, not do chores, not run errands.

It’s yours to do what you need because we carry so much all the time and we need that. So that’s such a great practice that is easier to add in than people realize it really, really is. But then. I’m thinking through. ’cause like I said, I’ve been through this before where I’ve tried to build something without margin and I’ve learned my lesson that you actually need the time to build things intentionally and do them well.

But I know that that means I. Creating a lot of space first, which means either saying no to stuff or turning down opportunities like planning for that time, whether you’re gonna call it a sabbatical or you’re going part-time, or whatever that looks like, and that can feel really, really scary. You know, it can feel really, really scary.

I’m actually in a season of doing this right now, where, uh, last fall I made the decision that my mastermind program, I was only gonna run once this year instead of twice. For me that looks like it’s runs January to May. We are about to wrap up the program at time of recording, and instead of then going through my summer with the kids and then starting another program with another group later the summer, and then having another retreat this fall.

I don’t have any of that on the calendar, which means I have a ton of open space compared to normal. I don’t have a plan for what I’m doing with that time yet because I haven’t, it hasn’t been birthed yet. I just felt the call that like something is coming and I need, I knew that I need, I was gonna need the time and the space, and so I decided to set one thing down.

And so I’m stepping into this season where I’ve created all this margin and I’m like. Now what? And I was able to make that really tough, scary decision because I’m a seasoned business owner and I’ve done it time and again, and I know that it will pay off even though it still feels a little uncomfortable and a little scary.

But how does someone who’s never made that decision before, never gone through that season? How do they step off the ledge, so to speak, and create that much time and maybe commit to making less revenue or working with less clients or turning things down? But to create the space to do something bigger.

Jillian: I really feel like, especially as women, we will, and I’m assuming I’m talking to mostly women in terms of listeners, but we have this superpower to really pull out all that we have, even things we don’t have.

It’s like we’ll create energy out of nothing if we have to, if it’s something we’re passionate about. That is our superpower. Okay. It is absolutely a gift. What every gift has is a kryptonite. Every gift has something that can be corrupted about it. There’s a vulnerability, a weak spot, a blind spot, if you will.

Ultimately, we have to mentally get to a point to where we’re gonna choose to. Take that pause for ourselves. Take the pause for our business, take the pause for our clients. And the way I want people to really it all, it all starts with a perspective shift. And the way that I want people to consider it is if you’re standing here, I’m just gonna like, just imagine I have a hundred dollars bill in my hand, and if I have my fist clenched on that a hundred dollars bill at a hundred bucks, that’s pretty awesome.

That’s how we, we see it a lot of the time. If I have my, my fist clenched, I am unable to receive anything with that a hundred dollars. Also, like I’m, yes, I’ve got a hundred dollars, but I only have a hundred dollars and you know, maybe I actually need $200, but I can’t receive the other a hundred. If my fist is just like tense and clenched.

But the minute I opened my hand, yes, that a hundred dollars could leave, someone could take it, someone could take it away easily. It’s also open to receive immeasurably more than what you can ask or imagine. And I really feel like the minute our perspective changes from, oh, I’ve gotta hold onto it, I’ve gotta clinch onto the control, I’ve gotta hold onto all the things.

And we allow ourselves to feel a little bit more peace in the outcome, to feel a little bit more really just choosing the possibility. And being optimistic about what is coming down the pipeline, because like you said, you’re a seasoned business owner. You’ve seen it turn around, and I think the longer we’re in business, the more we realize it will always feel a little bit like a rollercoaster like.

In in small increments of time, three to six months, it will always feel that way, but the longer you stay in it, the more it will always continue to rise and come back up on the other end. And so I think we really just have to stay rooted in the belief in what we do. Have that perspective that if it’s for me, it will come to me and I don’t have to control every little detail to make sure that happens.

Because the more we control, the less margin we have.

Sabrina: I love that, and I think what you said is very similar to what I believe, and it’s that, that listening to your intuition part of it, which I will say side note, when you don’t have any white space in any margin, it’s real hard to hear. But when you allow that time and you start trusting your gut and the ideas that you’re having, and knowing that, like you said, they’ve come to you for a reason, because they’re out there for you.

Again, I’m a seasoned business owner. I’ve done this time and time again. I now really trust my intuition because I have no reason not to. I’ve seen it happen over and over again, but for so many people, they’ve never experienced that. Like really stepping into fear and like, I have this idea, or I have this thing, and I really feel like it’s for me, but I’m, I’m nervous.

But walking through that, even with fear and carrying that alongside of excitement. And then getting to the other side is where you can really trust that your intuition is right, and the ideas you have are your ideas for a reason, and they are the possibility that’s out there for you, which is just such a beautiful thing.

But it is. A really advanced skill, you know, it’s not something that’s easy.

Jillian: You know, something else that we really try to walk our clients through is when you have a business that is growing and you’re like, oh my goodness, I’m so grateful for these clients and this work that I have. Even if we’re overwhelmed by it, you know, we still have gratitude for it.

Our mind immediately goes to management. How do I manage these things better? How do I manage my day better, manage my time better, manage my client communication better? My systems, whatever it is, fill in the blank, manage blank better. But again, going back to that perspective shift instead of management, it’s stewardship.

This is what I’ve been given. This is what’s on my plate. This is where my business has been blessed, and so how do I steward these things better instead of trying to manage management is gonna speak to all the little details that we try to control. Whereas stewardship is like, how do I turn? What I have today into more without compromising something else.

Sabrina: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So I would love to know, one of the things you talked about was like simplification. How that’s a first step for a lot of people because we are in that micromanaging phase of wanting our hands in all of the details and taking on more than we should. Is there a first step? That you often see people can take to simplify to start creating that margin.

It’s gonna sound really

Jillian: simple and, and I want it to be really simple for people. I want you to start documenting what you’re doing. Actually, maybe that doesn’t seem simple to people. Let’s actually look at the other version of that. If that’s like overwhelming to you, then. There are ways to approach it that will be less overwhelming.

Okay. So anytime you’re like, oh, I can’t do that, I don’t have the time for it, I dunno how to do it. There is always a creative adjustment that you can make to make it more approachable. But we actually created a custom GPT. It’s free and I’ll make sure to give you the link so you can share it with your audience.

All it takes like a video. If you record a video, it takes, you know, your brain dump. If that’s what. Is best for you of a system that you’re doing. It turns it into a really organized SOP, so standard operating procedure that you could then hand off to somebody else. Now, everybody listening may not have somebody to hand it off to, and that’s not a prerequisite.

But the minute that you start documenting what you’re doing, you’re able to either look at it and say, Hmm, how could I do this better? Which would be simplifying and therefore creating more margin for yourself. Or if you realize it’s something that you don’t have to be doing in your business, maybe you do look into hiring an assistant or somebody who could be doing that for you.

But the very first starting point is documenting those things. So like I said, we use Loom a lot in our business, and it’s a quick. Tool that you can just record your screen and you don’t even have to like, like you could talk about what you’re doing, but you don’t have to have it perfectly spoken. You can be like, oh, I meant to do this, but I’m doing this now.

Or you know, Ooh, I forgot this step. You can just talk to the video and then. Our SOP machine, you can drop the video in. It’ll watch the video for you, take the transcript, and actually turn it in to a simple process. Then you could even ask it, how could I simplify this further? There’s a lot that you can use with it to help tweak and make it.

A really simple process for you to continue to build out those standard operating procedures in your business.

Sabrina: I love that. That is so cool. I’m side note, I’m like living for all of the fun, like custom GPTs people are building. They’re so fun.

Jillian: I love that you’re, that you’re like, those are. So fun. I totally agree.

I think they’re,

Sabrina: they’re, I’ve been building some, um, for a couple of my programs and I’m like, this is like, so fun. I just, I just am like enjoying the process, so I love that. We will definitely have that link in the show notes. So let’s say we get some SOPs, but for somebody who’s, somebody who’s never had an assistant, somebody who has been a solopreneur from day one, wearing all of the hats.

I remember being in these shoes and being so, I wanna say overwhelmed, like I like the idea of having help to start outsourcing or offloading felt dreamy, but also it felt so scary because like nobody can do it like I can and I’m the one that built this and I’m the one that knows everything and it lives in my head, which.

You and I know is all silly because we’re on the other side of that, but how do you help somebody get through the realization of how beneficial it can be to have a VA or an assistant to hand off all the things that we don’t actually really need to be doing? Like is there a way that you can support someone through making that first hire?

You’ve

Jillian: talked about a couple of different things that we do, so I’ll start with like the very first step. The very first thing we ever do when we work with people and we are in the business of, we look at your business, we diag, we look at all the details, we look at all the pain points, we look at all of the vulnerabilities, all the growth areas.

We are able to diagnose where, like where are those weak spots? Where are those blind spots in your business? And then we dig in and we simplify it. We declutter, we make sure that it is in a more simplified version so that it does create the margin that you need to explore those bigger visionary ideas.

And the very first step that we do is we have our clients go through a time audit because we need to know how they’re spending their time. When you are the only person in your business, this is going to be very well, even if you’re not the only person in your business, because if you’re still doing a lot and you feel like you’re doing too much or you don’t have time to do what you want to do, it’s still very eye-opening.

But what we’ve learned, and this is an average over everybody, we’ve worked with, 70% of the majority of what we’re most of us are doing in our business. We don’t have to be doing. And so when we look at how they’re spending their time, we then go through and we categorize those things and we ask them very specific questions to really dig into if it’s something that they actually have to be doing.

I’m a firm believer in that if you have made yourself your business, you’re doing it wrong. Because even if we’re a solopreneur. Our worth is tied to so much more that is outside of that business. And the minute that we say we can only do it or we, we do it the best, we can only do it in this, you know, topnotch way.

We’re putting ourself in a position with way too much pressure and in a position where we’re ne we were never intended to be in, in our business, even though you are the person who is doing the work, you don’t have to be the person. To be the business, if that makes sense. There are still ways to create a business around a mission and a vision without you putting all that pressure on yourself.

So we look at the time audit, we look at how they’re spending their time. We figure out if they actually have to be doing those things. And if they do have to do them, do they drain them or do they not? Because if it drains you, then that is, that is your body telling you, you don’t need to be doing this regardless of if you feel like you have to be, you don’t need to be.

And so that is typically a very sobering moment for our clients to say. Oh, I guess I don’t have to be, and they start to become comfortable with the idea that they don’t have to be doing all of those little things. Something else that we talk about is time is not equitable with energy, so. What maybe takes five minutes could cost us so much in our energy that would pull from something else that we need to do that is even more important in our business.

And we get in this cycle of saying it’ll only take five minutes, it’ll only take me, um, the amount of time to do this. It’s quicker if I do it myself. It’s easier if I do it myself. And that those belief systems are putting us back into that. I’m the business mindset. Instead of saying, not how is this gonna done, gonna be done.

But who could get this done? And even if you don’t have anyone else on your team yet, the awareness that you don’t have to be the one to do it is the very first step into being able to offload that onto somebody else.

Sabrina: Yeah, I love that. I do wanna say that, you know, I am a huge advocate of outsourcing. I have lots of people on my team that do lots of different things that I don’t wanna be doing or am not great at, but that has come over time, right?

That has slowly come over time and co with my comfort level to give away more and more parts of my business. But I don’t, I don’t necessarily want the listeners to think that to scale, they have to have this big. Team, right? All of these people in their pockets. What does it look like to create margin and space to start scaling when you do want to stay a solopreneur when you’re not ready to bring on other people?

Jillian: That’s a great question. It starts with really simplifying what you’re currently doing. You have to be able to evaluate your systems, but again, if all your systems live in your head. Then you’re not able to properly look through them and say, oh, well I could actually automate that piece, or I could, or maybe we do think that, but it all just stays up here and the minute we get it out onto a Word document, a piece of paper, a whiteboard, whatever it is for you.

Our Apple notes because I know a lot of, a lot of us still operate parts of our business on our iPhone. The minute we get it out of our head and into something else, we’re able to look at it differently because we’re actually able to look at it. When it’s in our head and it’s stuck in there, we stay stuck in our head.

And I think that is a problem that, um, we don’t realize we have, but that we do have. So if you’re wanting to stay a solopreneur, that is an absolute acceptable thing for you to do. And scaling is still possible. And if you do wanna stay single in your business or if you want to have a very, very lean small team.

What you decide to do after you have created the margin by simplifying everything or automating what you can, once you’ve created that margin, you’re able to make the decision of the thing you wanna do next based off of that value. And so again, it comes back to simplifying to create that margin.

Sabrina: I’m curious.

One thing that’s coming up for me is when I think about seasons where I’ve created margin to build something new or allowed something new to come in, I have almost had to mentally prepare myself for what it’s going to feel like, and I’m gonna put air quotes around this to feel like my business is losing momentum.

Um, before gaining momentum, because sometimes that’s what it can look like on paper, right? If you’re taking less clients or working with less people, you’re intentionally creating more space by saying no to some opportunities. But you, you know, on the other side there’s gonna be growth, but it can feel like that mental battle of, well, technically I’m making less, or I’m working less, or I’m getting less inquiries.

And that’s really hard, you know, because a, a lot of us, uh, entrepreneurs or Enneagram threes, and we don’t want to feel like we are failing or that things are on a down slope. What do you have to say to that as far as. Staying focused on the big picture or, or Jillian, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s been that way for me, but it doesn’t actually have to feel that way.

Jillian: Well, I think it’s gonna feel that way, and I think we need to call that out. I think we need to get comfortable with the idea that it’s gonna feel that way because, but we also have to remember that our feelings are not always the true reflection of what’s happening. And so. Everybody’s method for reminding themselves of what the bigger picture is, is gonna look different because it has to match your routine.

It has to make sense for how you run your business, what you, your routine in your daily life, and all of those things. It all has to kind of come together in its own way for each individual person, but. The way you make decisions, the way you are able to view your work and the way that you can stay deeply connected to your business.

Like we started in the beginning with those, those topics, all of those things are gonna help you stay on track while the mental roller coaster of, because a lot of times, even though the bigger picture, we understand the bigger picture, we know that sometimes we have to scale back a little bit to scale forward.

Or maybe sometimes we have to make an investment to be able to make more money. It’s, it’s kind of the same idea, even in doing that. We have to be able to remind ourselves of why we’re doing all of this in the first place. Really what we walk through with people, we do a lot of, um, in-depth tweaking and moving things around and simplifying and building certain systems and doing all.

We do all of those things inside of what we do, but the core. Perspectives, I guess that we really hone in on are the values and figuring out what those values are, reminding ourselves of them constantly making sure that they’re implemented in our systems, making sure that they’re implemented in how we communicate with our clients, and how we organize our day, how we.

Basically do everything in our business, and if that is the root of it all, if that’s the core of it and everything overflows from it, your mindset around those ebbs and flows are going to be more consistent overall, and it just makes it easier for you to mentally get back on track the more you are reminded of those things.

Sabrina: Yeah, I think that’s so true. And just mindset in general plays a really big role in business, but I think it definitely plays a really big role in this and not getting hung up on the day to day the, the minutia of what’s happening and staying focused on that bigger picture. And like you said earlier, you know, when we look at week, over week, month over month in business, it does feel more up and down.

But when you look year over year, it’s, it’s more of that steady growth. And this definitely applies to that. Right. Yes, you’re committing to a season where your time and potentially your revenue are going to not be used in a way that you’re used to, and it’s not gonna look like what it’s used to, and that’s gonna feel uncomfortable.

But staying focused on the bigger picture and what the outcomes are going to be is gonna be so important. And it really is a mind game, truly because what I have seen oftentimes and what I’ve done myself is. Not staying like locked in on that mindset and allowing myself to get caught up in the wave of fear.

When you’re kind of in the messy middle of building something, that fear is where we create. I. Dumb offers, things that don’t make sense, things that set us back on the progress we want to be making because it feels easier and more comfortable and we know how to do it, and we just slide back. And that again, it, it messes up the momentum that we had on the really intentional plans we were making for our business.

Do you see that a lot?

Jillian: Yeah, I would actually, you know, earlier we said, you know, management versus stewardship, and I would say that the more you. Find yourself in the management side, the more you’re losing momentum. But the more you go into the stewardship side and you say, okay, how can I take this situation and make the best of it?

That is stewarding what is in front of us and what we have into our value based outcome. So even like, and I know that a lot of people start their business and they’re like, well, here are my values. Here’s what’s important to me. But really. Choosing values for your business or digging into what those are is probably a different process than we’re used to.

It’s not, you know, looking at a sheet of paper with values listed and checking boxes of like, oh, I like that. I like that. I like that. That seems important to me. That looks good. It really comes from your experiences as a person. And you know, maybe a bad boss that you’ve had in the past. What was missing from that situation?

Maybe the way that you grew up, what was missing in your childhood or what made you feel safe? That is where those important values come from, and they’re not compartmentalized in business versus personal life. Your values are your values. They need to be integrated from your personal life into your business so that it feels like a, a natural connection to them instead of feeling forceful or like, you have to remind yourself of those things constantly, but once you know what those values are, but can run everything through them, like a values checklist almost of, okay, this is a situation I’m in, or this is the feeling that I have.

How does this line up with my value of. Fill in the blank, or what if I were to put that value into action based off of how I feel this is, this is what I need to be telling myself. This is where I need to give myself more kindness. This is where I need to give myself more grace. It’s really so much more internal than it is.

Actions you take, although act, you have to take action. You have to have accountability in that. But it all starts with the awareness and that’s why we’re kind of talking about it the most. Because if you don’t start with that, then you will start taking action, but then you’ll, it’ll feel like, you know, two steps forward, 10 steps back.

Sabrina: I love that so much. And I love how you said it’s not just like looking at a list of values and be like, oh, those sound nice. Uh, but really thinking about our childhood. ’cause honestly, when we look at those list of values, they all sound nice. We wanna be good humans. I mean, so don’t we just naturally wanna check them all off.

But I love going back to our own life experiences and impacts that we’ve had and impacts that we want to have. Um, I think that’s so important. I love where this has gone today and how we’re really focusing on the fact that getting to a point where you’re ready to scale is uncomfortable. I. And then on the other side of that, it’s making another uncomfortable decision of moving things around and a commitment to shifting and creating pretty significant amounts of margin to move forward.

I can already tell you that I’m gonna get dms about people who are tempted, but scared. Sounds good, but it’s terrifying. And I love that you said like simple, simple, simple. First step is like 30 minutes a day. Can you just. Like, let yourself think about where you are, where you wanna be, and start to open up this brain space to be creative.

But then what? Then how can we help a listener get over the hump to realize what they wanna do next? And then feeling safe enough to create that margin to start the process.

Jillian: I say, let’s start. I like your idea though. Let’s do half a day a week. I like that plan. Forget, I said 30 minutes, but if that feels more approachable, fine do that.

But yeah, I think it definitely starts with that, making that, that space and that time. Once you have that though, then it’s just one decision a day, and it’s the decision that you feel like it might be a little bit uncomfortable, but on the other side of it, you’re gonna feel peace about it. As I was, as I listening.

I’ve never thought about it this way, but it kind of just kind of came up. I don’t know that comfort and peace are the same thing and I wonder if like we will feel dis, we will feel uncomfortable about making hard decisions, but I think that we can also feel peace about it at the same time. But I think that sometimes that’s hard for our brain to process that comfort and peace wouldn’t be in the same bucket together and the can be.

But when we talk about growth, I. And growing as a person, growing as a business owner, growing at growing a business in general, there has to be a level of tension or friction that we experience to refine us on the other end. So yes, start with that time each day, identify what that decision is each day, and figure out what is, where am I?

You gotta be really in tune with yourself, right? To be able to say, this is a decision I don’t wanna make. But I do have some peace around what the outcome of it would be, and being able to identify what that is can be tricky. But I say just take the first step, make a decision each day that will point to scaling your business.

You don’t have to do everything at once either. You can make a small decision a day.

Sabrina: We, we like the fast track. We wanna like, we love the idea and we’re like, let’s burn it all down and build this new thing and it’s gonna be successful right away. But I love that you said it doesn’t have to all be done at once.

It doesn’t have to happen fast. I think that’s a whole other conversation for another day about aligning. Certain growth things with the season of life that you’re in and the amount of capacity that you have based on motherhood or caring for elderly parents or things that you have going on in your life.

That’s a whole other thing, but will you gimme a couple of examples of this? One decision a day because I already am like, that’s a lot of decisions, you know, like, just gimme a couple. That would be a, the jumping off point, so to speak.

Jillian: Yeah. I would actually love to hear a decision that you make in your day.

Like I, I don’t know if you ever heard this statistic, but we make, I think I saw it one time, we make like thousands of decisions a day, and so. I would love to hear an example of your life of like, okay, what’s something that I need to decide on? Or, um, maybe just walk me through what your next hour looks like and then we can kind of dig into it to give us a real time example.

Sabrina: Yeah. So one of the first decisions of every, of any day is like, what are my priorities? And that is based on either urgency, you know, a deadline or a goal. So did I have a, did I have a project I wanted to do this week or do I have deadlines?

Jillian: Yeah, so your brain works. Okay. It’s the priorities come from deadlines and goals and probably values.

Also, what someone else might come across is that they might say, well, I need to start somewhere. Maybe they don’t have the language to say, I need to know what my priorities are. Or maybe they don’t have the rhythm in place to say, I need to pick three things that I know I need to do today and hold myself to those.

Maybe it’s just my inbox is full and I have this long to-do list of things that need to happen. Where do I even begin? I would say, take 30 minutes. Start with that 30 minutes. Take a look at everything and I would start with, ’cause urgency is also not. We’re not selling ambulances, we’re not saving lives.

So we have to remind ourselves of that so that we don’t feed into all of the urgent things. Maybe make a list. And I love the Eisenhower Matrix. This has always been helpful for me personally. I. Of saying like what’s urgent versus what’s important versus maybe it’s none of those things, or maybe it’s both of those things, but maybe even identifying and categorizing where all of those things lie.

What is giving you anxiety? What is giving you peace? What is going to compel your business forward versus what do you feel like you just have to do? And so if somebody is like sitting at their desk and or their computer and they’re like, I don’t know where to start, just take a look at your list. Brain dump everything out.

If something’s not on there, add it to it. Look at all of it, and pick one thing that is gonna give you the quickest win or give you the most peace.

Sabrina: I love that I, I do love the Eisenhower Matrix as well. It’s so helpful for realizing that. We’re carrying so much in our brain as women and. Most of what we’re carrying can actually be set down, you know, and that that’s the beauty of an, of a full brain dump.

Not just like a to-do list brain dump, but literally like anything that’s in your thought, write it down until your brain is empty and there’s nothing else there. And then sorting it. And again, most of what we carry is stuff that’s not important. That can wait until later. And then when you really have that clarity of looking at what’s actually in front of me and actually does need to happen this week or this month or whatever, I.

Immediately, at least for me, relieves pressure because it’s outta my brain. And also I realize it’s not actually that much, you know?

Jillian: Yes. So I wanna share a quick little personal story because my husband and I. We have a lot of moving things, right? We’ve got kids in sports, we’ve got a house to take care of.

We have a business together and I have my business. And so we just have a lot going on. And I told him the other evening, I was, the kids were acting crazy. We were in the, in the height of all the chaos in the evening. And I was like, I have so much anxiety right now. And he’s like, go upstairs, write it all down.

What are you anxious about? What is on your mind? And I, I did that. I was, I was a little resistant. I’m not gonna lie. I’m like, I don’t have time for that. But, uh, I took my journal and I wrote everything down. I will tell you, I filled up several pages. I’m, I’m impressed with myself that I was even able to write down as many things as were like crossing my mind.

’cause it was like, you know, this, this, this, this squirrel, like all of these things. After the kids got to bed, he said, do you care if I read it? And he read through it and he is like, 20% of this you can actually control. 20% of this is actually on you, whereas the other 80% are things you can’t control are, are there just feelings you have or things that you don’t even know are true, but you’re like, it’s like you’re, you’re kind of creating that narrative in your head or you’re worried about something that has nothing to do with you.

And that was really eyeopening for me. That really 20%, and it was not that many things. And even the things on that list were things that. I was then able to take and say, okay. What is gonna give me the most peace? What is gonna give me the most impact and be, I wasn’t able to even prioritize those things based off of what I know is important to me.

That was a very helpful practice. So even if someone feels like they’re at their wits end, maybe just like go full brain dump, dump everything into something where it’s out of your head and onto paper and start there. Because even just the act of doing that, like you said, you just like immediately you’re like, okay, this is no longer sitting on my chest.

It’s now off of me enough to look at it and make a good decision.

Sabrina: Right? And I actually tell people that this is a situation where I do not want you to type it. I want you to actually pin to paper because there’s like scientific proof of the action of like writing and take. It’s, it goes back to like college and high school and writing notes alongside of things.

The, the process of transcription actually shifts something and that’s where I’m like, I don’t want you typing in a Google Doc or in the Notes app on your phone. I want you to actually get a physical piece of paper and a writing utensil and sit down and do it that way. ’cause it just feels so much better.

I, I think a good brain dump solves a lot of problems,

Jillian: honestly. I think so too. And honestly there’s probably a nervous system connection with that and or sensory. And I, I think that that’s a really powerful thing. So, yeah, definitely wrote it down. I love

Sabrina: that. Julian, this has been such a fun chat. I love to end every episode with just some fun questions to let the audience get to know you a little bit more.

So I’m curious, is there, do you have a hobby or something fun that you’re doing just purely for joy this year? I am in my hobby era.

Jillian: Okay. Yes, I am loving watercolor, so. I actually got my degree in graphic design, so I’m a creative at heart while I spend my days like doing operational type things and they’re, they feel very techie.

I think that my creativity just blooms in other ways, whether it be creative, problem solving, solving, or through art. And so I’m loving watercolor right now and I’m also loving flower arrangement. We moved into a new house, um, last year, and the people that owned it previously loved flowers and I love flowers.

And so I was like, oh, these are my people. And the flowers in the garden that they planted before we got here have been blooming. And it gives my heart so much joy to like trim those flowers, to put them in a vase, take them to a friend and drop them off at her porch. Like those things give me life. So.

Just being able to use those little creative pieces, even if it’s like five minutes a day is, ugh, so good for me.

Sabrina: Yeah, I love that. I also took up watercolor this year. It was something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and I’ve been resistant to, and it’s been so fun and honestly I’m not good at it, but I still like it.

It either, yeah, like there’s so much. There’s a lot of technical skill to it and doing it right and, and anyways, it’s been hard for me to learn, but I’m enjoying the challenge because I have to focus on it and not other things. Um, so that’s been really, really good for my brain. Okay. What is something that you are always up to talk about

Jillian: Balancing life and business and integrating the two?

I, I know that that feels very businessy, but. It’s a very personal topic for me. I grew up with a dad who was an entrepreneur and had his own business, and he really struggled and even warned me when I started my own business, like, you can’t do this and have all of those things. And, and I look back and I really appreciate him sharing his experience with me in that moment.

But I also, it charged me up and it said, oh yeah, watch me. So I feel really passionate about people making decisions in their business that really honor who they are as people, and that in return honors the people that they impact through their business. So I could talk about it all day.

Sabrina: Oh my gosh, I love that so much.

Um, I’m, I’m curious. Is there something that you have up your sleeve for later this year or maybe early next year?

Jillian: Yeah, so we’re already kind of tiptoeing into it a little bit, but, and we, we talked, we kind of touched on it earlier, but we are, we’re just going ham on some custom gpt. We love it. It is a tool that I think a lot of people, in terms of customizing them can feel a little bit.

Rocky with. But what we’ve done or what we’re trying to do is we’re taking our entire process and even as we like take people through our 90 day intensive, we will create custom gpt for them that are specific to their pain points, specific to their rhythms and leaving them with them after those 90 days.

Like it’s always our goal to. Basically leave your business more simplified than we found it, and more at you, more at peace with your business. And ultimately to where you don’t need to hire a total operations manager or anybody like that. We wanna give you all the tools to be able to do it yourself because you can.

And so part of that is building out these custom gpt for them to have these ongoing conversations and dialogues as if it were our team, using our frameworks, our methods, and our language that is very grace-filled in, in our approach. To be able to continue that support in a way that empowers them, doesn’t just hinge them our, or make them need us more.

Sabrina: That is so cool. I love to hear that. That’s really, really exciting. Maybe you already touched on this, uh, a little bit, but is, do you have a favorite like business tool or a hack that you’re loving? I know you said you love the Eisenhower Matrix, you’re loving the custom gpt. Is there anything else?

Jillian: I would love to give you, like something that somebody could go download, but really I think my hack in this season of life is giving myself permission to have a slow morning and to.

Do what I wanna do in the mornings. I know that that sounds like that’s like oversimplified or like, maybe even silly, but for someone who puts a lot of, who naturally puts a lot of pressure on themselves is a bit of a, an achiever. And a helper. Like I really giving myself permission to just like do something creative at the beginning of the day or drink my coffee a little bit longer or, you know, get creative with like.

How I start my day or whatever it is. For me, giving myself that peace is my ultimate hack, and I think it’s made me a better person, a better mom, a better business owner.

Sabrina: Yeah, I love that. That’s something that over the past, I’d say two years, I’ve been slowly kind of falling into that rhythm without even really intentionally doing it, but like allowing myself just to get to my desk later and realize that like.

It’s not gonna burn down. It’s fine. You know that like, it’s okay. And honestly, I’m sure you feel the same way. But if I have less time for my priorities, then I’m, I’m more, um, likely to turn everything off, do not disturb, and get things done faster. And so then I’m, I’m in the best of both worlds. I am, I’m spending less time doing the things I need to do in my business and also giving myself more time.

Yeah. I love that. Um, okay my friend, this has been such a great chat. Will you let the listeners know where they can find

Jillian: you? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me too, by the way. So everybody can find me on Instagram at jillian dwberry or on my website, jillian dwberry.com. And if you want that so P Machine, go to jillian dal berry.com/sop.

But I’ll also give you the link, Sabrina, so you can put it in the show

Sabrina: notes. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. That’s it for today, my friends. We’ll 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.