152: Q3 Business Bestie Chat with Colie James

Sabrina: Welcome to the Shoot at Straight podcast, where honesty meets heart and real talk actually means something. I’m your host, Sabrina Gebhart, 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. All right, my friends. Welcome to another episode of the Shoot It Straight podcast. Today is everybody’s favorite. We’ve got another business Bestie Chat with my business, bestie Coley James. This is our, I don’t know, seventh one of these. At this point, we are rocking and rolling. It’s always hilarious how much more feedback these episodes get than any other, uh, people just love to hear what we talk about, which is.

Why we started doing these, because when Coley and I talk, a lot of awesome stuff happens and we talk on Voxer all the time, and these chats are just kind of quarterly updates of what’s happening in my business, what’s happening in her business. We get ideas off each other, we go on tangents. It’s all the things.

It’s business, a little bit of personal, all mixed together, and you, the listener, get to just listen in on what it. Is like to have two high achieving women have a conversation very candidly about our business, where we also know each other and can point out like, Hey, are you doing this? Hey, maybe that’s not a good idea.

And we kind of call each other out on things. It’s really, these chats have been. So fun for me, and obviously the listeners resonate. So here we are for the Q3 2025 chat. Uh, my

Colie: friend, I’m so glad you’re back. Thank you. I mean, I don’t know how you think you’re ever gonna get rid of me. Um, I mean, eventually I think we should start putting these on my podcast, but I’m gonna be quiet and I’m, we’re gonna finish ’em out on.

Shoot it straight. See what happens for next year. I mean, maybe we do one on mine, one on yours. I keep telling Hailey she should just like slip me the audios and I could just go put them on too.

Sabrina: I know. I have also thought that, and have we talked about this before, like we could totally have our own private podcast.

Ma’am doesn’t, I think that sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? Because then we could record at whatever frequency we wanted. So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about that. We’ll put a pin in that. ’cause I think that would be a really fun, like side project that we could do. Um, maybe that’s something we can brainstorm when we’re in Chicago together.

Colie: Yes. That sounds like a plan. Okay. Okay, listeners, you heard it here first. I mean, and wait, but let’s, let’s actually hit on that. ’cause I’m gonna bring this up. I know that it’s on your list of things, but there are things that you and I bring up and that we talk about together on this podcast. And then they eventually, you know, come to fruition later.

So one of the things that we’re gonna talk about is my new done with You offer, and I spent some time this morning going through the transcripts of our previous episodes to figure out how far back I actually mentioned it for the first time. And so it turns out that it took me a solid six months to get it out, and it’s been eight months now and I have feedback on it and it’s amazing.

But things really do come out of these podcast chat. I just wanted to put it out there. Not only do you guys get something from it, we definitely get something from it. ’cause again, it’s being recorded and we can go re-watch it like Sabrina did or re-listen to it like Sabrina did. Or I can run through the transcripts with my chat GPT Strategy call bot to help me out.

Sabrina: It really is like when we say that we bring our real time conversations to the podcast, like that’s literally what we’re doing and, uh, you guys get to listen in and, and kind of hear things first, which is so fun. We always like to start these episodes with a little bit of a recap situation, so here we are at the start of Q3.

I would love to hear from you Q2, what went well, what was hard?

Colie: I did a lot of selling in Q2 and it was not totally successful. So I think the first thing that I’m gonna start with is I was working with DAMA JU as a coach, and she’s amazing. And you know, we set some goals. I chatted with her every week. I was hitting all of my things, but when it came to the actual email challenge that I ended up doing at the end of April, that went into May, and then I launched my course.

You keep correcting me and telling me that I was on fail. I have other things to like add onto it. That didn’t make it a fail, but at the end of the day, I only sold four seats. And I feel like that was very disappointing because would I have sold four seats without all of that extra, like spending the hours on the email challenge, you know, putting it together, inviting people, doing all of this.

I mean, it just seemed like a lot of work to sell four seats. Now I have to think about visibility going forward though. I mean, I did put myself out there. For the first time in a very long time in a public way, and so that was also like a good thing that happened. But in general. I feel like I spent a lot of energy and I didn’t actually get a lot of ROI in terms of actual dollars in my bank account.

Sabrina: And that’s interesting because you’re, you’re right, there’s like a downside to it where you’re like, but it didn’t go like I wanted to, but also it’s gonna be interesting to see the impact. Moving forward because you’re right, like now your visibility is picking up and you have been launching new things and, and so like, will it be better next time?

Will it start selling passively? Like all the side effects that happen after, you know, like quote unquote, the launch is over. So that’s gonna be interesting to see. Anything else

Colie: on the back end of the challenge? I created my first new course in years. It’s called email, like you mean it. And it literally started from the idea that I was tired of people telling me that they needed workflows when they didn’t have anything else set up for their client experience.

And so I’m currently in the launch for this. It’s not done. Again, I haven’t sold as many seats as I hoped, but I am at 13 now, so it’s 13 in the last, you know, week or whatever. We’ll see how many more we get before this airs, but for the first time in a very long time. I am very excited about a product that I created that has nothing to do with Dato and HoneyBook.

Like I think that that was a win in my book because I do have a lot of people in my audience that want to work with me, but they’re with Sprout Studio or 17 hats, and I’m like, yeah, I’m sorry. I’m not going to learn all of the things about that CRM just so that I can help you out. So I am really excited to finally have a product that is not tool specific.

It is strategy. And so I’m loving it

Sabrina: and it’s been really fun to talk to you on Voxer about like how excited you are and your ideas and how it’s going. And just hearing your energy behind it like is awesome. I. I’m just, I’m just excited for you because I haven’t heard you have this kind of energy about something in a while.

Colie: I feel like things were getting very stale. I mean, now that other offer that we’re gonna talk about that’s going well and that is very tool specific. Yeah. But I feel like in general, I think I’ve made more things in the last, let’s say 45 days than I have made probably in the last three years. Yeah.

Sabrina: Which. Is a sign of how much better you’re doing, how just all of the things, like, it’s kind of like the junk’s been cleared away and now like your creativity is back and you’re able to get in the flow and be productive. And anyway, it’s just, it’s been exciting to see it’s, it’s been exciting to watch.

For me, good things that happened in Q2. I had a lot of new leads to my list, uh, because I have two ads running and they’re both going pretty well, and so I’ve just been dumping money into them and so I’ve had a lot of new leads. Um, I also had just done an email list cleanup and so I had tanked, gotten rid of a bunch of leads, and it’s been nice to kind of put new, fresh ones in.

I also spent the month of June testing out a new idea for the round table and have decided it’s going really well. So far it’s been really well received. We’re gonna continue the test through July ’cause I’m just not a hundred percent ready to make a decision about whether it’s gonna stick or not, but.

You know, and if you listen to the last podcast, we, I had really been mulling over like The Roundtable needs a change and I don’t know what it is. And so this is the first thing that I’ve changed and been looking at, potentially moving forward with. And it’s been fun. It’s been different because again, the roundtable’s been running for so long in such a format.

That trying something new and like switching something up is a little uncomfortable and you’re not used to it and you don’t really have a rhythm and, and so I’ve had to put a little bit more effort towards it, but I think in the long run, if it sticks, it’s gonna go really well. So that’s been fun. And I also launched my marketing course again, which is great.

This time I decided to add a live component to it. So I added what’s called the summer sprint, which was my answer to people’s course graveyards. And you know, everybody buys courses. I’m guilty of this too. You buy it, you’re excited about it, then you never log in. Or maybe you log in once and you don’t finish it.

And I hate that. And so I decided I would add a two week summer sprint that had five calls in it. A roadmap to get somebody all the way through the course and support them within two weeks. The good, the good news is that I launched the course and I had the summer sprint and I raised the price on it. Uh, the bad news is it didn’t go so well.

I had, I think, 13 students enroll, which is okay, and I wanna talk about that in a second. In relation to yours. But what has been going great is the summer sprint. The women that are showing up to the live component are just, they’re getting through the course. They’re asking questions. I’m able to give them specific support for their launches or their email list or their content strategy.

It’s been really fun to see women get all the way through something and support them, and it just reminds me how much I love coaching women and having that relationship and that connection to them that I talk about all the time. Bad things that happened. Maybe not bad struggles. Struggles not bad. That happened in Q2.

My schedule was real hard and it was really hard day to day. I mentioned it on the last, uh, chat we had, but club volleyball this year, man, it really took it out of me for a lot of reasons. So I was wrapping that up in Q2 and. April and May, and then May is just a chaotic mess with end of school and all of the things and wrapping up a route to rise and doing all of their offboarding.

There was just a couple of really heavy months. The other thing that felt hard for me, uh, was that. I was facing all this uncertainty of what happens after route rise ends, and, and I know I talked about that a little bit on the last episode. I, this is the first time in three years where I haven’t had another route rise coming immediately.

And I don’t have any major launches planned. And intentionally my fall schedules wide open and it feels, or at least in Q2, it felt really uncomfortable looking ahead at like, well, what the hell’s next? You know? And so that was a really uncomfortable transition at the beginning of summer. But I will say I’m over that hump and I’m now really leaned in to how much time freedom I have, uh, which has been nice.

So that kind of brings us to current day for both of us. You have a lot of new things coming, so I’m gonna let you go first and listeners, this is literally one of the things she’s gonna talk about is literally in like. Happening in real time. Like this is, this is a, this week conversation we had. Uh, so Coley, what do you have New that by the time this episode airs.

People can go check out immediately.

Colie: Oh yeah. It’s live today. Okay. So yesterday I was chatting with Kinzie Soderberg of authentically AI for her podcast. And you know, I’m, I love talking about all things ai. I’m really surprised when I gave the recap that I didn’t mention how much joy I am getting from thinking about all things ai, not just for my business.

Like I’m having conversations with other business owners and they’re telling me something and I’m like, you know, you could make that into a custom GPT. Like it wouldn’t take you very much time at all. And then your students would get blah, blah, blah. I mean, I find myself saying this over and over again.

The conversation that I had with Kinzie yesterday was really great and we’d had like three different conversations over a few weeks. I. When this episode airs, I am in the middle of what of a sales sprint. I am doing it with seals, Lockley, it’s called the sales Parade. And basically I have to talk about one offer four times a day for 14 days.

So if this airs while I’m doing it, I apologize in advance. She told me to. So I have to do it, but I was really stuck on what to talk about because as we just mentioned, I just launched my email course. I just did a launch of the CRM blueprint. My done for you, or I’m sorry, my done with you that we have been talking about constantly in these business Bestie chats isn’t really ready for me to do a launch, so I was like, what am I gonna talk about?

She was like, well, what comes after the email course? I was like, well, after you’ve done all of your customer journey emails, you are ready to make workflows. And I was like, but you know, okay, I could do my workflow templates. I mean, they’re $197, whatever. I literally said that and then had the conversation with Kenzie and got in the shower and you guys know I have my best ideas in the shower.

I had to get out because I was so excited. What I ended up deciding and what I am really we’ll see where we end up in the Q4 business bestie chat, but I am pretty positive. I am pulling all of the individual templates that I sell in my shop out. I am at a crossroads. Where I feel like if I am selling you a template and it is just one purpose and it isn’t really looking, mapping, integrating into your entire client experience.

I don’t wanna give it to you. I don’t wanna sell it to you. I don’t want to talk about it. I am really about everybody upleveling their entire client experience right now. And while that doesn’t mean that you have to buy my course, it does mean that I am refusing to give you these, you know, smaller things that you don’t know where they fit.

Which brings me to this offer. I have pulled the workflow templates out of the shop and they have been replaced with a new pro with a new product. And I’m gonna tell you the name ’cause it’s Disney inspired, but it’s Workflow FastPass,

Sabrina: which I’m obsessed with the name. I’m like literally obsessed with

Colie: the name.

Well, I’m glad that you’re obsessed because the first one, I was gonna call it automate like You mean it. And AMI was like, no, ma’am. And I was like, okay. But I mean, but by the time she told me that, Sabrina, I had a half of sales page done. I mean, it was only like an hour later, but I had literally already sat down and started making the sales page.

But then I sat down and I thought about it and I was like, I really do want the word workflow, but like I have a freebie workflow. Magic. I have workflow templates was already taken. Like, I was like, how do I do this? And I was like, Disney Workflow, fast pass. Okay. So basically you’re still getting templates, but when you buy this product, which by the way is the exact same price as what you were paying me before for workflow templates, so it’s not even about making extra money, but you buy it, you’re going to get an intake form, it’s gonna take you 10 to 20 minutes to fill it out, and then it gets fed through my AI assistant.

That helps build workflows. I get the finished result, not you. Then I take my systems strategist brain and give it a quality control check. I make sure that everything has been met for the things that you said you wanted inside of your customer journey, and within 72 hours, I will present you with a completely custom done for you workflow plan that you or somebody else on your team if you have a virtual assistant, can go into HoneyBook and Dato and literally just click buttons and you will be ready to go.

But this is my way of kind of putting my fingers back in the pot and making sure you talked about a course graveyard. I feel like I see template graveyards way more, although they’re both a problem. But I don’t want you to buy something from me and never use it, and so this is my way of making sure that I have given you like the best starting point that I possibly can without you paying me for a done for you offer.

Sabrina: I am so obsessed with this. I think it’s gonna be really exciting for so many reasons. And also I talk about this all the time on the podcast, but at the end of the day, it’s a game like, we’ll see, maybe it’ll take off and be amazing and you’ll love it and they’ll love it and it’ll be a win, and maybe not.

And that’s okay too. Like, I don’t know. You’re really inspired to do this. And it aligns with you wanting to see your people like succeed, and it also aligns with like your love of all the AI stuff. And so it’s like a really magical fit right now. So I’m super excited to see how this lands. Listeners, we will have a link in the show notes so you can go get on board for this, which is really, really exciting.

Colie: And I’m calling it like a white glove service. This is actually how I got the idea. I was listening to a different podcast and it was talking about white glove services starting with an AI tool. And for my done for you, I’m ready to announce the name on the podcast. It is called Systems in Sessions, and this is something that I actually ideated on this business Bestie Chat in Q3 of 2024.

Like I went back and I read the transcript. I, oh, actually it was Q4. I actually read everything that I said and all of the things that I said, were gonna be in this offer, are in this offer. I started with two beta people. One of them heard that first business, Bessie Chat and was like, listen, whenever it’s ready, just send me an invoice, which I did happily.

But now it’s got five people in beta, and it turns out that the people who are really attracted to this done for you offer are people who have very high touch client experiences inside of their photography business. They might be doing IPS. They are doing a lot of planning with their clients. Like it is not the standard like, let me shoot you for an hour.

I send you your files and you’re done. So these are the people that are attracted to this offer, but the reason that I’m telling you about it yet again, besides the fact that it’s actually out in the wild and I’m going through it right now. This whole workflow, FastPass is actually going to be something that I am going to use with the new people that are starting going forward, because I’m going to make them fill out the intake form.

I’m going to create them a completely custom set of workflows so that that is where we start our journey together. Right now we’re doing it on a strategy call. Like we go back and forth like I do for my done for you people, and then we end up ideating. But I feel like if I can give you that starting point, I am going to get you across the finish line with a completely implemented client experience in HoneyBook or Dodo so much faster.

And that’s gonna leave us more time to do other coaching things. So I’m super excited.

Sabrina: I love that. And personally, as a user, I. I love when I make an investment in something, if there’s something I can immediately do, because that feels good to me. It aligns with like, literally the moment you hit purchase, you’re excited to like dive in and do the thing.

And so as a user, I would be pumped if you immediately sent me like the, you know, fill this out. Let’s get started. ’cause I, I’m in, I’m in it, I’m like committed. I’m ready to do it. It would feel like I’m getting started immediately. I kind of love that.

Colie: And I mean, of course it can always be, this is something that I wrote on the sales page, but what I give you can always be tweaked later.

But whatever you are dreaming about inside of your client experience, customer journey right now, it is going to be reflected inside of these workflows that I give you. And so later, if you wanna add on like a consultation call because you didn’t really wanna do them now, you will have the flexibility to do that.

But this is just like one step further than me giving you. My original workflow templates, which I’m gonna admit, they were good. I mean, I had them customized, whether you’re a family photographer or a brand photographer or a wedding photographer, but this is just like one more layer of personalization and customization for your specific business and the specific touch points that you want with your client.

Because we all interact with our clients in different ways, even if we basically have a very similar customer journey. Yeah.

Sabrina: Yeah. I, I just am really excited for this to move forward. Because it, again, it just feels super aligned and clear. And let me just say, this just popped into my head. We’ve just talked about two new offers.

Let’s just call ’em, because basically they are, and they’re similar to things you’ve done in the past, but they’re refined. For both your clients and for you and I, I want the listeners to hear that that is something that comes over time with experience like you and I, our first digital products were not refined, you know, and we have tested things and tried things and learned what we like and what we don’t like and what our audience likes and doesn’t like.

And how we can support them better, and things are constantly getting tweaked and refined as we grow our experience in the digital education space.

Colie: And I just wanna put out there, I know that Sabrina just said that, and it’s one thing for us to say it, it’s another thing to put a dollar amount on it. I am gonna give Sabrina a link to a podcast episode.

It’s a short solo, don’t you know, it’s not very lengthy, but I talk about how I wasted $5,000 building a digital product that no one wanted. And so I want everyone to know we fail. And I’ll be honest, I feel like I fail a lot sometimes. Now I, there were lessons learned. I ended up using that. I ended up re, you know, revamping it, refining it.

It is still in my offer suite now, but it is different. But y’all $5,000 and I sold less than $500 of that product. And so I just want to reiterate what Sabrina is saying. Your first idea is probably not gonna knock it out of the park. But it’s what you do after it doesn’t go well. That pretty much defines how you will move forward in like this online business if you are choosing to sell digital products.

Hey, friend, real

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It’s quick, it’s fun, and best of all, you’ll walk away with a personalized strategy to help you attract more of the right clients without doing all the things or losing your mind. So if you’re ready to finally feel confident in your marketing, head to sabrina gehart.com/marketing-quiz and take the quiz, and I can’t wait to hear what your results are.

Now, back to the episode. Piggybacking off of that, specifically for the listeners who are stepping into education or are new in education for my one-to-one clients that are in this journey. What I want you to hear is not that you shouldn’t launch your first idea, it’s that don’t expect it to be the million dollar idea, but you have to get it out there.

If you don’t launch it and learn from the launch and the response and, and continually tweak it, like you’re never gonna get to the point where you have something that’s refined and that’s right. You have to start somewhere, and that means it’s gonna be messy and you’re gonna think it’s this awesome idea and it probably is, but it’s also not going to take off the way you do.

It’s just part of the learning experience. It’s kind of like, I don’t know if the listeners know this, but um, gosh, how many years ago was this? 12, 13 years ago. My husband ran for a political position. We went through that journey, which was, that’s another story for another day. But what I wanna tell you from this is when we hired a campaign manager, and I say we, because it was a family experience, this campaign, when we hired a campaign manager, the campaign manager specifically told my husband, the first time you run for a political office is not about winning because you are not going to, it is about having your first.

Experience on the campaign trail and everything that happens along the way. The connections you make, the lessons you learn, all of the hard work that goes into it, the momentum that it adds to your career and your name, and he’s like, you’re, you’re not going to win. If you do, it’ll be a miracle. That’s not what campaign number one is about.

Campaign number one is about starting, and it’s the same kind of thing when you’re stepping into education. You have to start somewhere and just know that it’s going to continue to get better over time. So we just little plug for those of you that are in the education space, um, okay. I also want an update on what your learning, coaching experience, education that you’re participating in currently, what is new for you on that front?

Colie: So it’s interesting because when this airs, I actually don’t know what I, I don’t know if I’m still gonna have a one-to-one coach. The plan right now is probably, but you are asking me about a course that I bought, a program kind of that I joined, I joined Self-paced because the VIP supported version was sold out.

So I jumped on this, you know, self-paced version with the hope that I am going to get a supported seat, which by the time this airs, I should have one. Fingers crossed, I. I joined a program from Kelsey McCormick of coming up Roses, and it’s called Launch Your Own Way. And this is where I publicly admit that I don’t do launching.

I don’t do selling in that way. I. I have always felt like my programs were not the kind of things that you launch and then you close the doors and then you reopen them later. Because when you guys need systems, you’re not gonna wait 60 days for me to reopen it. Like you need your systems now. So I’ve always gone with an evergreen approach, but I think that the problem that that caused is that I never really got in the habit as Sabrina’s talking about starting.

I was never really doing marketing campaigns in a meaningful way. And so I’ve joined this program because she is someone who used to be in the music industry and now she teaches people how to launch. But really it’s not about launching, it’s about creating marketing campaigns. And I find this to be so fascinating.

And so I’ve dove. I dove in. I mean, I think I’ve almost gone through all of the curriculum. But the one thing that it made me really excited about was to sell and to once again, put myself out there in a visible way. And I’m still not back on Instagram. Baby steps, girl, baby steps. But at this point, I am, I have two podcast episodes a week.

One’s a solo, one’s a guest. And during the summer, um, when I’m doing these sales things, I think it’s gonna be two solos a week. I mean, I am excited about that. I am sending a lot of emails. If you are not on my email list, go to coley james.com/subscribe. I am sending a lot of emails. Some of them are selling emails, some of them are just storytelling, but I am trying to figure out what kind of marketing feels good to me, and even if the stuff in this course, because that’s the problem when I buy a course or I join a program.

This far in, I feel like, do you have anything in there that I do not know? And so that’s what stops me from buying a lot of things, joining a lot of things with this course. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if her actual curriculum didn’t tell me anything new. I was feeling inspired by her and her content and her flexible frameworks as she calls them, to start selling and start marketing in a more consistent manner.

And so I’ve already gotten an ROI, you know, if we look at it from that lens. But I’m super excited and hopefully by the time this airs, and then definitely when we do our next business bestie chat, I will be in the supported version where there’s two calls a week where I get to ask for feedback and like I’m really going down to like the basics.

I want you to look at my sales page. I want you to tell me why people are not clicking on my emails. ’cause my click rate is atrocious. All of you guys are opening my emails, but you’re not actually clicking on my stuff, so I need to work on that. And I’ve decided that’s my goal for Q3 is to work on getting more clicks.

Sabrina: I love what you said about choosing a program or a course or mentor, not based on the fact that they’re gonna necessarily teach you something you don’t know, but how it’s packaged. So getting you to think about something differently or hearing about things. You know, maybe put together in a different formula.

It’s, it’s kind of what happens when you and I talk on Voxer, like we know what we’re saying, but we get a new idea because of how it was phrased or the perspective that was given to it. You know, we talked about this a little bit on the last podcast, but there gets to be a point when you’ve invested in so much education that there really isn’t anything new.

It is all about the, the teacher or the platform showing you new ways to think about things. And like you said, if you get one great idea or one piece of information, it’s, or like inspiration, it’s worth it.

Colie: And I mean, I, we talked about education, so like 13 years ago, actually, I think it was 13 years ago when this podcast comes out.

Was when I officially launched my first course to photographers, and it wasn’t dato. It was how to be like a lifestyle documentary in-home family photographer. That was what the course was. Way back then, I actually used a wait list method. My course sold out. I had 20 seats every time it ran, and it always sold out within 24 hours.

And I used a wait list method then, and maybe that’s why I was drawn to this particular program because Kelsey really focuses on the warmup as she calls it. Like, how are you warming your audience up to be ready to buy your things? I have a lot of things that people can buy from me. I don’t know that I do a good job of warming them up.

And so that’s what I’m trying to focus on. And one of the things that she talks about a lot is a wait list. And so I tried it with the email course and that is where 13 people bought off of the wait list. So I mean there, there are still lessons that I can learn from people, even if what they’re saying is something that I have done in the past successfully or not successfully.

When you get to a different, like path in your business journey or whatever it is, sometimes being reminded of things that you already knew and being approached about it in a slightly different manner can really put you on the path to, you know, talking about your offers differently. And hopefully in my case, like a more successful summer of sales, if you will.

Sabrina: Okay. I have one more update I need from you. Are you running Facebook ads yet?

Colie: I am not. But you know what? You know what? Like, I think that the problem was, I was not really convinced that any of my freebies and any of my offers were something that I wanted to run an ad to. I feel like I’ve been so like in the weeds about the conversion rates and it’s because I had so many of them, but guess what?

I have actually picked a path. The email is the path. And it’s the path because it isn’t tool specific. So I am in the process of giving the email freebie, like one more refinement. And honestly I’ve got two versions. I’ve got one that’s like a PDF download kind of thing. And then the email challenge that I did, I did turn it into like an evergreen thing.

So I am planning on running ads to both of those after I come back from my summer sabbatical after like we have all of our birthdays and Chloe’s in school by the time we talk on this podcast episode next quarter. I will have ads running and they will be to email products and we will see how it goes.

Sabrina: Okay. Okay. I’m ready for it. I put it, I,

Colie: I put it in like pink sharpie.

Sabrina: Okay. I love it. I love it. So. For me, Q3. I’m finally, like I said, on the other side of my chaotic calendar, hard spring season, and I’m definitely leaning into summer at time of recording. We’re about to leave for Colorado. I’m gonna be in my happy place for two weeks and listen, that’s her happy place because I’m here.

I just

Colie: feel like I should just put that

Sabrina: out there. Okay, continue. I’ve done a really good job this year of. Getting stuff done before that trip, like I feel better going into this trip than I have in years past, which is amazing. I’m feeling good schedule-wise and some fun things that have happened on the other side of route to rise in the offboarding process, I onboarded three new one-to-one clients.

Which was really exciting that these women decided that they loved the program and they wanted to continue working with me in a one-to-one fashion. So that means I only have one more one-to-one spot left for 2025. If you’re listening and you’re interested, send me a message. But that’s been fun because it’s keeps me coaching, which is what I love.

And in this one-to-one fashion. So I have those women and I have some women that had started, um, at the end of last year. So I’ve got this core group of women that I’m coaching one-to-one. I’m talking with them in Voxer. It’s keeping my coaching brain functioning while I’m not in root to rise, which is lovely, but it still feels like I’m missing something because I’m not like about to run the program again.

It just feels really weird. So actually. On my walk this morning. Ooh, real time on my walk this morning. I was just thinking about it some more, like, you know, it is 2026 gonna be a one run or a two run year. If it’s a another one run year, what’s the second half of the year gonna look like? And I, I kept, I keep going back to the fact that women graduate root to rise and they want a 2.0.

I know that and I hear you. I hear you. I have yet to figure out what that looks like. I had an idea of something that potentially maybe we will play with next year. It’s too late to do for this year. Maybe we will play it, play with it next year. Maybe it’s after women are in route to rise in the spring, they get invited to participate in OP in an optional thing at the, towards the end of the year or for the second half of the year.

I don’t know. I’m toying with how it could be potentially like a 2.0, but not as heavy as like the full program. I, I don’t know. I, I just kind of was having some ideas roll around in my head, and of course, you know, me, Coley, when I have ideas, I get excited, but then I also immediately go to what could potentially go wrong.

Like what are the downsides to this idea? There’s definitely some of those too. So I’m not sure. I’m excited about having an idea. It’s the first time I’ve had an idea about this in a while, so that happened in real time. I’m gonna think about it. I’m gonna talk to my coach about it and see what her thoughts are, so,

Colie: you know.

I mean, you’re gonna talk to Darcy before you talk to me. I think I’m insulted listening audience. We’re gonna cut this off now so that Sabrina and I can have a powwow before she chats. Chats with Darcy shortly.

Sabrina: Mm. Okay. There you go. Um, so I’m excited about that. Um, just to have a, just a little tiny download of, maybe this could be something.

Um, I am planning on launching two small offers in Q3, both under $50. Both under $40 actually. Um, and so they’re gonna be, I don’t have it fully fleshed out yet, but probably like a flash sale type launch of small, low lift, easy commitment type things. So I’m excited about that. Oh,

Colie: I have an idea about that.

Sabrina: Oh, okay. We can talk about that too. Okay. What else do I have as far as updates? I had one thing that’s been really fun that I’ve been doing, and the listeners already know this. If you listen to weekly episodes, ’cause you’ve already heard some of these drop. But in preparation for the Route to Rise launch in the fall for 2026, I wanted to have more stories from women, which.

Sounds dumb on the surface because obviously I have a zillion stories, but no,

Colie: because we both have the same goal

Sabrina: from all the women. Yeah. I have so many stories from all the women that I don’t have them in like a place, you know? And so I wanted more of these. I mean, you can call ’em case studies, but really just I wanted better stories and so I invited all of my Roots, rise alumni to participate in a podcast.

And I invited them. I said, Hey, if you wanna tell your story on the podcast, I’d love to have you. And I think like 10 of them said yes, which was amazing. And so slowly I have been interviewing them one by one and asking them to share their experience in the program, but less of like a sales pitch and more of a, just tell me about your transformation.

I wanna know where you were and where you came out of it and where are you now a year later or two years later, um, to show the impact of the momentum. It’s been really cool because obviously every woman’s different. Every woman’s story is different, but having those conversations has been so fun, and I’ve just been dripping them out on the podcast.

They’re gonna continue to come out throughout the end of the year, but you’re gonna love this Coley, I don’t think I’ve told you this. I take the transcript from the podcast and I throw it into chat GBT with a prompt. That takes their entire story and then it gives me a short little blurb and then also like a longer blurb that I can either use on sales pages or an email copy.

I have not done anything with any of them yet ’cause I haven’t needed to. But I have a document that they’re all like saved in. It’s been really fun. Aren’t you proud of me for that?

Colie: I’m very proud of you, and I’m gonna send you my GPT so that you can run the transcripts through it and you can see if it gets any better.

Okay? I love that. I mean, I’ve also written one where it’s, it’s specifically writing the transformation in something that could be put in one canvas on your website or one that will write a full case study for you, because I can’t remember, I don’t think it was this podcast, so I’m gonna say it. I wanna say it was like two months ago.

There was a prompt going around the internet that was basically ask Chat GPT, where you’re failing. That is not what it was. I’m gonna have to ask Hailey ’cause she’s put it on my podcast. The truth that chat, GPT spit out at me literally made me gag and cry at the same time. But one of you and

Sabrina: I sent this to each other.

Yeah, it was, it was, I can’t remember where it was. It said something like, show me what I’m missing. My blind spots. Yes. Or something like that. Yes, yes. Okay. Yes.

Colie: And so it identified my blind spot as number one. I am an awesome teacher, but that I talk more about the features than I do the benefits. I don’t highlight my client transformations enough because I have a lot of them.

Like I’m feeding it transcripts from my people and then it’s looking at my sales page and it’s like, why it, I mean, it’s telling me why is this not on your sales page? So yes, I am trying to do a better job. And one of the things that I said when Haley interviewed me for my third, oh, that’s where it was, my third podcast anniversary, um, when Haley interviewed me.

She said, you know, what are you doing on the podcast going forward? I said, I feel like I’ve stopped inviting photographers, and I’m not talking about photographer educators like you, business besties. I’m talking about like actual photographers that are still just doing photography. And so I have invited like a slew of them to come on my podcast and just talk about like.

Marketing and client experience, but not from the perspective of, I’m teaching you how to make it better, but like you are, you know, you’re currently in the thing. Like, tell me how it’s going for you. So I’m happy that you have been putting, and you called it real stories, real women, I think is what your tagline is or something.

Yeah. But, um, yes, I am gonna have something and now I need a tagline. Dammit.

Sabrina: Okay, so those are the things happening for me. It, it that, if that seems like a short list to you listeners, it is a short list for me. So, you know, Q3, July, August, September, this, again, I’m going into this slower, lighter season and I’m trying to keep it that way to see what other downloads ideas I have.

And so it is a relatively small list of what I’m working on and things that, that are happening, and that’s intentional. I will say you are not running Facebook ads yet. Are you ready for what I’m still not doing yet. What are you still not doing? I still don’t have Convert Box

Colie: set up and I did know that and so can I I feel like we brought it up on the podcast and I didn’t actually like give you an update.

No. The moment that I turned up on my Convert Box popups to do freebies, I saw an immediate increase in people who were converting from my website. I still don’t think my quizzes are doing very well, but in terms of actually like bringing people and getting them on my list. They are doing a great job, so dang it.

Bye. I know the next time that we listen, I know if you don’t have it in September, um, anime will be a bully and make you do it too. So it’ll be good. We will gang up on you. We will literally sit with you well and

Sabrina: be like, well, I don’t even, I don’t even wanna do the complicated thing that you guys have. I just want it to like pop up and recommend this freebie or this thing or this, whatever.

Like it, it should be easy and I think that I am capable of doing it. I just. Haven’t done it yet, but it’s

Colie: okay. ’cause once again, I’m telling the listening audience for accountability that if she doesn’t have it done by the time the three of us are in Chicago, we will sit in front of her and tell her that we can’t go to dinner until at least one is launched.

We’ll see how that goes, guys.

Sabrina: Okay. We’ll see how that goes. Um, okay. One more thing I wanted to talk about, uh, briefly that you and I are in real time interested in and exploring further is human design, how it relates to our business. So, yeah. I almost cut you off

Colie: earlier when you were talking about, um, your one-to-one offers and bringing people into your, you know, one-to-one coaching, and then you were planning on launching these smaller things.

I feel like you and I should just have an entirely different conversation about how both of us really thrive when it comes to helping people one-on-one and even selling one-on-one versus how we feel about launching these things that we think. Bring in our right people at like a lower price point, and at least in my opinion, they don’t in my business.

So I feel like that’s a topic for a different day. But you and I are planning to have a podcast interview on my podcast Business First Creatives about our energetics and our human design and how that influences how we run and think about our business. So I’m super excited about that.

Sabrina: And for the listeners, if you don’t know what human design is, it’s uh, like an energetic kind of type based on your birth date, your time of birth, and your location of birth.

And I know what I am. Coley does not know what she is because she needs to get a birth certificate situation. I cannot wait to figure out what you are. I wanna know what, what’s similar and what’s different. I thought I was

Colie: gonna be able to tell you tomorrow, but my mother didn’t go back to Texas yet. Oh, dang it.

I mean, I think I should just order one online. I think I should just bite the bullet. But yes, definitely by the time we have scheduled this podcast interview, I will have it. I will know, I will have a conversation with Brianna so that, you know, I can get more information than we talked about when we were guessing.

Um, and we’ll see where it goes.

Sabrina: Yeah, I, um, so I have mine figured out, Darcy and I have a call later today. She and I are gonna talk about it a little bit there because she’s very well versed in it. Brianna and I have a call next week. Okay. To dig in to how it applies or can apply to my business, which I’m really excited about.

And then Darcy had encouraged me to download the Align app, and it is all about you plug in your information and then it has all of your information, but in great detail. And you can also listen to it in audio version, which is really cool. And then it gives you tips based on your type every day that pop up.

So far I’m enjoying it. So it’s free. You can have a paid version. I’ve paid for a year just ’cause I was like, why not? Anyway, so once you get yours, if you’re interested in that, the app is really cool. So, um, highly recommend. Okay, listeners, we’re gonna cut it off here just ’cause I have a hard stop. I’m so sorry we could keep talking forever, but next time we record we will have either just seen each other or.

Somewhere around there. Right? That’s the next

Colie: time. I feel like that’s not saying much at this point. Don’t we just see each other like every quarter now? I mean, we didn’t

Sabrina: see each other in Q2.

Colie: Oh, we did technically it was the very first day of, of, but we did. Oh, that’s

Sabrina: true. That’s true. Yes. Okay.

Colie: Technically, I mean, you know, if you wanna get really technical. I did. I saw you at the end of q of Q1 at the beginning of Q2. That is because it was

Sabrina: the same trip. That is true. That is true. Okay. Um, this was such a great chat as usual. Um, thank you for being here, my friend, and we’ll see you next quarter.

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.