213: The 3 Systems Every Photographer Needs Before Fall Hits with Emily Woodall Gbadamosi

Sabrina: Welcome to Shoot It Straight, the podcast for women building businesses and lives they actually want. I’m Sabrina Gebhardt, and around here, we believe in clarity over hustle, alignment over burnout, and giving yourself permission to want more, more ease, more beauty, more income, more space to live. So if you’re ready to grow without losing yourself in the process, you’re in the right place.

Welcome back to the Shoot It Straight podcast, my friends. We have a brand new guest here today. She’s new to you. She’s not new to me. I’m lucky that she’s already in my world, and I’m excited about where we’re going today because it is extremely timely. This is airing in August right before busy season fully ramps up, and most of you are family photographers listening, and we’re about to like buckle up ’cause here we go.

And so my hope is that my friend Emily is going to bring us some really tangible takeaways. You guys know we love tangible things on the podcast. She’s gonna bring us some tangible takeaways that you can implement this week when you’re listening to help make your busy season better, and we love that.

We love that around here. We don’t want the burnout and the end of the year, you know, crash out stuff situations. So I’m really excited about the chat. Before we get too far into things and I get distracted, Emily, will you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Emily: Yeah. Hi, Sabrina. Um, I’m so happy. Thank you for having me on the podcast.

I’ve been listening for so long. It’s just fun to actually be here on the podcast, so, um, thank you. Um, so yes, I’m Emily, Emily Woodall Gbadamosi. I’m @woodallcreativeco on Instagram, and I’m a system strategist and a HoneyBook expert, and I help photographers set up their systems so that they can live the life that they want with their family, with their creativity, and have their business run with ease.

I’ve also been a family and maternity and newborn photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area for about 10 years, and I’m just really excited to talk everything systems and boundaries and all the things to help you have a, a good fall season this year.

Sabrina: You and I are so aligned in our beliefs around running a business and having it be balanced and not having it be this big monster that I think, and we’re gonna talk about this today, I think all family photographers have experienced at some point or another, right?

Like we have … It’s just the nature of the beast, so to speak, but it doesn’t have to be that way, and you and I know that, and you have this unique perspective because you are … You’re that dual person. You’ve got the hat of the systems person, the expert. You’ve also got the hat of running a photography business, so you fully, deeply understand.

So before we get into anything super tactical and those tangible tips we talked about, paint this picture for me. You and I both know what it looks like. We’re gonna assume most of the listeners know, but maybe somebody listening is not a photographer or is brand new in business or is stepping into that niche for the first time.

Like paint this picture. What does a typical fall look like for a photographer who does not have those systems in place? And I know that you have lived a version of this. I have lived a version of this. So take me back to like your worst fall ever, and let’s just really get into the nitty gritty here.

Emily: Oh my gosh.

Yeah. When I was first starting out, probably my first, second, third season in business all could be com- said are, were my worst fall ever. But I remember, I, one my f- second year, I think, and I was working a full-time job. I was an educator before I, I stepped away from that and, and started photography full time.

And so I was working full time as an educator. I was helping seniors with their college applications, right? Like busiest time as an educator. And then I decided I’m gonna just run this full-time family photography business. I hadn’t niched down. I was doing everything in the world. I was, I was doing some weddings.

I was doing elopements and couples and all the things, and I had zero systems. So I was tracking everything basically in my head, which never is going to work well for you. I was doing things by text message and email, my Gmail account. Nothing was Streamlined and nothing was consistent. So everyone was getting like a different experience from me.

And at the end of that year in, you know, November, December, I was really sick. Just totally run down, and it was icky. You know, thankfully at that time I didn’t have like a family and a kid to also contend with, but many family photographers do. So you think about that, and it doesn’t feel good. Like that burnout, and you then have to start back up again in January and think about your year, it, it just, it’s so not fun.

Sabrina: I have absolutely lived that too. And the thing about it, and I’m always coaching women on this, is we have to fix these problems while they feel really raw. The best time to work on your systems, I think, is in the fall or immediately after the fall. Because the truth of the matter is we make a whole lot of money in the fall, and when you get too far removed from it, all you remember is the dollar signs.

All you remember is how you had all this influx of cash, and your bank accounts were really healthy, and you got to like pay cash for Christmas and wh- whatever that looks like for you. And we get motivated by the dopamine hit of money, and we kind of forget the messy stuff. Just like in childbirth, you, you lovingly have a baby, and then you forget how hard it was to be pregnant, how hard birth was, how hard the first two months are when your baby’s not sleeping.

And right around the time you forget all that stuff is when you get pregnant again. You do the whole thing again. Not to say that you wouldn’t have another baby, but it’s the same kind of thing. Like, we forget the hard parts and the ugly parts. And so I think the fall is the best time to do this work to set yourself up for future success and kind of right the wrongs that you’re experiencing.

Uh, so let’s dig into that. Before we hit record, you told me that you’ve got, you know, three systems that you think make the biggest difference. So before we get into the systems, I really would love to know, you started out in business working super hard, really burned out, getting physically ill. At what point did you realize that working harder wasn’t actually making your business better, that you need to s- you needed to like get systems in play?

Like when did that click for you that like it doesn’t have to be this way, it can actually be better?

Emily: Yeah. I think it honestly was after that really, really busy season, and, and I got sick. It was like, there is no way for this to be sustainable for another year if I wanna continue down this path. And at that time, like I said, I was still working a full-time job.

This was technically a side hustle. Like I didn’t need that money in order to sustain my life, but it was something that I enjoyed. I liked when I was doing it. It felt good. But the burnout side of it felt Like crap, right? Like it felt terrible. And so, um, it was that next January that I was like, “You know what?

I can’t sustain this without, like, digging in hard on a system, on a CRM, making sure that I have things that are gonna be in place for every single client, and I don’t have to be doing and keeping track of things manually in my head forever.”

Sabrina: Yeah. Did you already have experience with systems and CRMs, like, from your job or hearing about them from friends?

Or were you like, “There has to be something out there. I’ve gotta figure this out”?

Emily: Yeah, you know, I think at the time I was just doing as much, you know, education as I possibly could. I was listening to podcasts and, you know, I’d started to hear about a few of the different CRMs that were out there. And I landed on HoneyBook kind of just because it was what I was hearing about the most.

It wasn’t necessarily like, you know, I know this is gonna be the best one. And, and it has worked really well for me, so I’ve stepped, stuck with it. But I had also Maintained a lot of systems in my education job as well, and I knew that when I had a system in place when it came to that side of my, of my life, that everything did work so much smoother.

So I knew from, from my previous experience that, you know, if I had something in place that was gonna be consistent, and I think that’s what CRMs really do, that I was gonna be able to, like, you know, take a deep breath and not be so overwhelmed by the business side of things.

Sabrina: And I do wanna speak to what you just said.

Like, there is absolutely an education piece to the systems. I, neither one of y- of us will sugarcoat and be like, “It’s so easy! Like, just start using one.” No, it’s a process. You have to have the mental bandwidth. You have to have the clarity of what you’re doing. You have to have the time and the effort to, like, dig in and figure it out, but it pays dividends unbelievably.

And I will just say this little plug, um, and I know you feel the same way, I, I get pushback on CRMs so often from photographers under the five-year mark because of the cost. Two things, because of the cost and because of the time, and the like, “I’m not techy enough to figure it out,” and they’re scared, and they just don’t.

Okay? And number one, speaking to the techy, I don’t have time, it seems overwhelming, yeah, it, it is. Like, I’m not gonna sugarcoat that. It is. There’s a lot of YouTube videos. You can work with professionals like Emily or anybody. You can have somebody do it for you. You can carve out a month of your time and figure it out.

Like, yes, you’re gonna have to carve out the time. It’s going to be uncomfortable. You’re gonna get frustrated, but you will be able to figure it out, just like you learned how to photograph in manual mode. That’s also not easy, my friends. Nope,

Emily: it is not.

Sabrina: But speaking to the money part, I always give my students and women that message me tough love here, and I’m like, “Suck it up.

I love you, but you have to have a CRM to be considered a professional.” That is one of the things that sets you apart from a hobbyist. That is one of the things that sets you apart from the shoot and burn. That is one of the things that is going to help you be in business longer and not be that, you know, 75% that quits un- in the under three-year mark.

The CRM is the thing, and we’re not talking about a huge, a huge amount of money. We’re talking about 40 bucks a month. If you can’t find $40 a month, you have bigger problems.

Emily: Right. Well, and I think, like, yeah, you’re absolutely right, and I think that, like, 40 bucks a month, if you think about it that way or you think about it as, you know, 500 bucks a year, whatever, right?

If you raised your prices by $40 for every session, you’d pay for it, right? Or if you, if you do one session, you’re paying for it. So hopefully everybody is, you know, putting their prices at that, that rate enough that they, they can pay for it. Because if you’re not, you’re also probably still at a hobbyist level, and that’s fine, right?

And that’s okay. But if you are trying to run a business, I 100% agree that you have to have a CRM in place because it makes you professional. It takes care of the things in your business that are required for you to be running a legitimate business.

Sabrina: Exactly. Exactly. Okay, off the soapbox. We’ll get into the real conversation here.

I just had to make that plug because anytime I talk systems, that’s the thing. People are like, “But I don’t wanna pay for it.” And I’m like, “Okay. Well, then you can continue to not take your business seriously.” So again, you have boiled this down to three systems. We’re gonna kinda go through them one at a time and dig into them.

And the first one is booking, like having a, what you’re calling a broken booking process. So take me through, like, the client experience when somebody’s like, “Hey, I’m interested in a session,” all the way to, “Hey, I got on your calendar.” How, how can we make booking better, faster, easier?

Emily: Well, I’ll get a little bit on a soapbox here for this, which is if you are saying, “DM me to book,” that is a problem.

That is not a system. Instagram as a marketing channel is great, however, it is not your booking system, and if that is how you are getting people to, to book you, that’s, that’s problematic. You’re gonna lose out on people, right? They’re gonna go to spam. They’re gonna go to y- you know, you don’t check your Instagram for three days, whatever, right?

That’s, that’s not gonna work for you. So I really believe that you do need a, you know, a CRM to help you with this process. Um, but even if you don’t have a CRM yet, there are ways to make that more professional, right? But having booking links that either link people directly to a calendar where it shows your availability, or it is an inquiry where then you’re sharing your avail- availability or a consultation call or, you know, n- a next step, that is necessary for you to be more professional and also be more consistent in your process.

Sabrina: I wanna speak to what you just said, the consistency in the process. Consistency is huge because just by nature of the definition, it is ensuring that every single inquiry gets the same amount, like, level of service. Every client, every potential client, every lead is getting the same level of service, and that is absolutely huge whether people book with you or not, because that ties to your business reputation, which is massive, right?

I don’t think people realize that our reputation is not solely based on paying clients, right? It is based on how we show up.

Emily: Also, when you have a consistent booking process, even if that person doesn’t book with you that first time, they may come back. This happens to me all the time. All the time. I have a lot of people who will reach out for maternity or newborn photos.

They either will look at the price or look at the timing or whatever, like people reach out way too late for maternity photos. And, um, and it doesn’t work for whatever reason, right? And that’s fine. But then they come back a year, two, three years later and book family photos with me. I cannot tell you how many clients that has happened with me, and the process is the exact same.

There is not much that has changed, and so they get the same, you know, experience from me Time and time again. Also, if they refer friends, right? You don’t want that you do one thing for one friend and one thing for another friend, ’cause they’re gonna talk. They’re gonna be like, “Oh, I did photos with so and so too,” right?

Um, so having it be the same for everybody just makes your life so much easier.

Sabrina: I, I like to tell this story. I have a friend who has… is also turned into a client, and she actually was a, she was a nanny for us years and years and years ago when my littles were little, little. And now she has her own family, and she lives very close to me.

We live in the same neighborhood. And she reached out for photos, this was several years ago at this point, when she just had two, and she wanted to do photos at home. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, yes, I love her. I love her kids.” Like, this was such an easy fit. But even though she’s a friend, I put her through the whole process, as we do.

And start to finish, treated her like a real client. Yes, we may have done a little bit more texting than normal because we are friends. Same process, okay? S- went through the CRM beginning to end. And when I showed up to her house on session day, hadn’t even started, hadn’t even taken my camera bag, like hadn’t even started.

She looks at me and she says, “I just want you to know,” she goes, “You know that I love photos and I do photos multiple times a year all the time.” She’s like, excuse the language, she’s like, “You know I’m a photo whore.” She goes, “But I want you to know that we haven’t even started yet and I feel more prepared and more taken care of than I ever have with anyone else.”

And I was like, “I love that.” You know what I mean? And we have since worked together several other times because it is so easy for her, and she feels so taken care of and so prepared and led and directed through w- like having that consistent and supportive experience.

Emily: Well, I can say the same thing about you with this podcast, Sabrina.

We were talking about b- this before before we got on air. And you know, I, I… so it really doesn’t even matter what your niche is, right? You could be a photographer, you can be a podcaster, you can be a doula, right? It doesn’t matter, but your CRM, your system is what supports your clientele. It supports the people who are going through your process in whatever way that is, whether that is from booking all the way through an end session, or if it’s booking through, “Hey, sorry this isn’t gonna work for me,” right?

And for me, that means, like, doing consistent follow-ups. I’m not just like, “Oh, they never talk to me. I’m not gonna talk to them.” I’m going to double-check with them, “Hey, did that land in your inbox or did it not?” Right? So you … It’s not just like that first booking link, but it’s everything that comes after it as well is part of that booking process.

Because if you’re just sending one email and they never respond and you’re going, “Uh-oh, I guess, well, they didn’t wanna book with me,” that’s probably not true.

Sabrina: We have all had that experience with someone. Again, doesn’t matter what industry we’re talking about. We have all gone to a website or tried to reach out to some sort of service provider or whatever about inquiring about something, and we’ve had a clunky, subpar experience.

We’ve all had it. I want you to think about that and promise yourself you’re not gonna be that person, right? Like, you don’t wanna be that person because half the time, if I’m totally honest, if I go to a website and I’m like trying to reach out because maybe I heard about them or read about them or whatever, and or they came up on Google, and I’m trying to reach out, if, if it feels clunky, I’m immediately gone.

I’m like, “I’m out. Nope. I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re the best of the best. I’m out. I … This is not worth it to me.” And, and we don’t want that. We don’t want that for a reputation for potential clients or anything. When we think about booking, okay, when we’re talking about the booking process, there’s, like you said, booking links, there’s links to calendars, there’s we can automate contracts and invoices.

There’s a lot of pieces. Canned emails. There’s a lot of pieces of the booking process. To not overwhelm somebody, if somebody is starting from zero with this, what’s the first thing that they should tackle to kind of get on the right page?

Emily: Well, besides having a CRM, which we’ve already talked about, I think the first thing to tackle is your intro email Having a solid templated introductory email that gets sent after they send an inquiry through your website on a contact form that is linked to your CRM that is either completely automated that you don’t have to touch because it is, uh, personal enough that it doesn’t have to be personalized, or something that is templated that you can very quickly, one minute, make a few changes to based on their inquiry and send out.

I think that’s the first thing that you need to do. For me, that is honestly getting… When I do that and I have that in my system, I’m getting booked from that very first email. I am not having to think about it, you know, three, four, five steps down the road. They’re not going back and forth with me a thousand times.

The clear next steps are in that email, which I think is probably the most important part of that, that you’re saying, “Okay, you inquired with me. Here are the clear, exact things that you do next in order to actually book with me.” And that can be a variety of things based on your own business and how you wanna run it, but it does have to be clear.

It can’t just be like, “Thanks for inquiring Yay. Or tell your life story. You know, it, it, tho- those things, it just needs to be very clear, simple, what do you do next in order to pay me money?

Sabrina: I love how you mentioned, like, whether it’s an automated email or not. I think that’s huge, especially for beginners.

Have your emails prewritten, whether they’re saved in a Google Doc or a note in your phone, or they’re automated in a CRM. Having them prewritten is better than any other option. Like, so if you’re, if you’re listening and you’re like, “Okay, okay, okay, I hear you about a CRM, but, like, I’m not doing that yet,” fine.

Have them all prewritten somewhere so that you’re not having to reinvent the wheel. There’s many reasons why that’s better, but the consistency of client experience is the number one reason. So that’s the first thing. The other thing I wanted to say is, again, if you’re, if you’re still gonna push back on a CRM, most of the major website templates have the ability for your inquiry form to send a, uh, an automated email response through your website outside of the CRM.

So if all of your other emails are ca- are, are, like, prewritten in a Google Doc, you can at least have that one still be automated, and it’s, uh, surprising how many people don’t realize that that’s a built-in feature to most website platforms. If you’re hearing this and you’re like, “Wait a minute, it is?” Yes, it is, okay?

So look into your platform if you did not realize that because that automated email is your first impression. It’s truly your first impression. Yes, maybe they followed you on Instagram. Maybe they clicked through to your website. They’ve liked you enough, but that email is the first, like, almost face-to-face, like, one-to-one interaction, and you want your best foot forward.

We all know that. So if you can get that written beautifully and then have it automated to respond, that’s what you want it to do.

Emily: Yes, absolutely.

Sabrina: Realistically, how quickly can somebody get the booking process cleaned up and made better? Could somebody listening in real time in August still have this up and running before they launch their fall sessions, before they launch their mini sessions?

Like, how quickly can somebody get this going?

Emily: Absolutely. I mean, even if it is just automating that first email, right? That can be done in a couple of hours, if not an hour, right? You’re writing that first email, you’re getting it templated, and then you’re setting up the backend either on your website or through your CRM, and that can absolutely be done.

And then, you know, the, the second step is having a calendar or a scheduling link so that people are easily seeing your availability, and you’re not having to go back and forth about dates, right? That’s the last thing you wanna have to do, especially during busy season, is go back and forth with, with clients about, “Oh, does this date work?

Does this time work?” Right? I can say from working in client experience, sometimes that can be like 9 or 10 emails, um, that I see people going back and forth with, and that’s so much time out of your day, your editing schedule, time with your family, that you don’t really need to be doing.

Sabrina: Yeah, and all of that stuff adds up.

They’re like, “Oh, it’s 15 seconds here, it’s 30 seconds there,” but when you compound that by 50 mini sessions or whatever you’re talking about, I mean, it’s a lot. It’s a lot. People don’t realize the time creep on, on all of that. Okay. So let’s– We covered booking. I feel really good about we gave them a great solid first step.

We told them, you know, what to do in their CRM versus what to do if they’re really not gonna do that. Great. We’re gonna make that better for them. They’re gonna get that first initial email really cleaned up so that it is beautiful and clear. It is clear about what’s next, okay? They’re booking themselves.

We’ve made that process faster and more seamless. Now we shoot the session We shoot the session, we’re into the busy season, and we’ve got like a tower of galleries a mile long, right? That is staring at us. So let’s talk about editing as a system. You and I are both fans of using AI because I’m sorry, it’s 2026, w- you- everyone should be using AI at, to support you at some point in your editing.

If you’re not, I wanna give you a stern talking to, but we’ll get into that. We both love Imagen AI. There are other platforms out there, but for someone who’s skeptical about this, right? They hold their editing so near and dear to their heart. Make a case for it for me.

Emily: Yeah. I’ve had this conversation with so many photographers, and I will say my biggest case is, um, how much time do you want to spend on editing?

And I understand some photographers love editing, and if that’s the case, maybe you should be an editor. You know, not to be snarky, but like, if you love editing that much and that is really the thing that you love about photography, then maybe that should be the path that you go down. Um, because, uh, for me, I do like editing, but I don’t like it enough to like not spend time with my family.

So I would really rather that it is mostly done for me, and then I put my eyes on it at the end of the process and I’m able to, you know, do the things that are unique to me as a human being, um, my unique eye, making sure, you know, yes. Does AI get white balance wrong sometimes? Absolutely. Do I need to go in and check baby’s skin to make sure that, you know, some of that redness is gone?

Totally. Do I have to put, you know, a very specific hand touch on every single image? No, I do not. It’s, it’s just not necessary.

Sabrina: I did the math, um, years ago before Imagen was even really off the ground. I had another editing service that I was using ’cause I outsourced my editing like, I don’t know, 13 years ago, um, and have never looked back, and it has not always been smooth, but it has always saved me time.

And I did the math one year on how many hours it saved me, and it was like an astounding number. I wanna say it was like 30 days worth of, of time that I got back. It was insane. So here’s the thing. I, I get the pushback too on people. The two, the two pieces of pushback I get is, “I love editing,” or it’s the, “I don’t know.

It’s not gonna get it right,” whatever. Number one, if you love editing, cool. I love that for you. I don’t think you should love it during busy season Right? It’s one thing when you have six sessions a month, and it’s February, and you have the time and the bandwidth, and it lets you play creatively in a different way.

I love that for you. Do all the editing. Fill your editing cup. But when you are at capacity for two, three, four months, and you are shooting more than you normally do, you absolutely do not have the bandwidth to be doing it. I don’t care how much you like it. You have to s- learn to set something down to help…

Again, we’re talking about not being burned out in the fall. The answer to that is giving yourself as much time back as possible, and that is the number one way you’re gonna get an amount, a huge amount of time back. You could pick up so much free time in the fall from that that you could pick up a new hobby, you could have white space every week, you could do, I mean, all kinds of things that would fill you up in ways that are gonna serve you while you’re supporting all these clients, and then you can get back to your editing later if you want.

Like, I’m not saying you don’t have to edit ever again.

Emily: Well, and I, you know, I’m a m- mom who is the sole care provider for my child, and so I’m doing all of my work during nap times and when she’s asleep. And I still also want to spend quality time with my husband, and that’s important to me. So do I want to be working every single night until 9:00, 10:00 PM on editing?

No, I don’t. I wanna stop at, you know, 6:00, 7:00 when we put her to bed, and then that… I’m done for the night for everything. So I’m editing during nap times, which means one or two hours during the day. And guess what? I can get it done in one or two hours during the day. A full gallery I can get done, and that is because I’ve set up my workflow and my, my profile in ImagenAI.

I do my hand… I do a little bit of hand culling because I’m an overshooter, I will admit. So I cull in Photo Mechanic first, then I throw it into ImagenAI. It culls the second set for me. I do a quick once-over to make sure th- it didn’t miss any images that I really wanted, ’cause it doesn’t have an artistic eye, right?

It’s not gonna look for like, oh, wow, that, that image was actually an artistic image that I want in the gallery. So I make sure that those are pulled in, and then I let it do its thing, and I spend one or two hours on the back end doing those hand touches, removing, you know, annoying objects out of the background ’cause mom forgot to m- move her water bottle or whatever, right?

Then I send it off, and it’s done And it’s so lovely.

Sabrina: Yeah. My, my workflow is similar, although I’m faster than you, um, at this point. I… Which is fine. Like, no shame, right? I just, I have really, really optimized. I also do my first pass culling in Photo Mechanic, and, but I am, I am an overshooter, but I’m also an excellent culler.

Like, excellent, okay? I am so fast. So I will bang through the first cull. I will get it from, let’s say I shot, you know, 900 images, I’ll get it down to 160 in the first pass, and then I will actually just… This is so wasteful. Please don’t judge me. I will throw all of those into Imagen. Because when you’re paying five cents an edit or something ridiculous, I’m like, “Sure, that’s fine.”

And then I will do my second pass cull after I see the first round, like the AI edits. Um, and that’s when I really refine it down to, whatever, 80 images or however many I’m delivering for that gallery. I on- I spend less than an hour fine-tuning a gallery, because it is… I’m just, I’m just, I’m fast. Like, a- again, it’s almost 16 years in business.

Like, I just am really, really fast at things, and, um, it’s great. So start to finish, I’m spending under two hours on a gallery, which is wild. I used to spend five hours editing it over the course of a couple of days. You know, I mean, it just, it’s insane how much time it saves you. The other thing I get is I hear a lot of people that say, “Well, when Imagen AI first came out, I tried it and I hated it.”

I hear this all the time, and I tell people, “I hear you. It was not great when it first came out. It had dreams of being great, but it was really not actually great in actuality.” It is wildly different now. If you have not tried it, I cannot tell you how many women I have said, “Just trust me, go back and give it another shot.”

And within days they come back to me and they’re like, “My mind is blown. I had no idea. It’s so good. I’m obsessed.” Give it another shot. And I know y- you’ve probably heard this, ’cause everybody talks about it, it takes your own editing style and matches it, and the, the technology is so accurate. You can also set different profiles based on, um, if you’re a, you shoot in-home newborns, but then you also shoot outdoor seniors.

Those are different lighting, different colors. You may have a different profile. You can create different profiles. It’s so helpful. And the last plug I will give for Imagen AI before we move on is that I also think it’s a really great tool for newer photographers who’ve not nailed their editing style yet.

Emily: Oh my gosh, yes.

Sabrina: Because number one, you can use someone else’s profile, which is, like, such a hack in 2026, or it helps you refine your own profile so that you are cohesive, which is the number one thing, again, for the creative side of being considered a professional, right? We think systems and client experience are huge part of being a professional, absolutely.

But when you look at the creatives, your work has to be cohesive.

Emily: I think that’s, that’s actually one of the things that I think it has helped me a ton with, is that I know, like, especially for, you know, maybe for mini sessions, right? I, for mini sessions, I let it do basically the entire thing. I’m not touching them kind of at all.

And it’s because, you know, those sessions are done in the exact same place, in the exact same lighting, you know, over the course of an hour or two. And so I don’t need to spend a lot of time looking at the, those images. I can dump all of them into Imagen, have them completely done, deliver on a quicker schedule as well for mini sessions, which people appreciate, are more likely to then upgrade to a bigger gallery ’cause they’re like, “Ooh, I got these back so quick.

This is amazing.” Right? So there’s actually money on the back end by having a more consistent experience and a quicker experience because clients are happier with you, um, when it comes down to that as well.

Sabrina: Yeah, I just can’t sing its praises enough. And also, with it getting better, the ac- the technology getting more accurate, the onboarding is faster.

So yeah, it’s August right now. Yes, I think you could have this implemented to use, like Emily said, for your mini sessions this fall. All you do is you load in, load in every image you’ve taken this year, and it’s gonna be like magic, poof, here’s your pro- profile, and then you take it and run with it. Um, you can implement this this fall.

And

Emily: you can adjust it, too. You know, like, if it, if, if you feel like it isn’t totally getting it right, you can adjust it per shoot if you really feel like you need to, to see, you know, if, like, lighting was wildly different than, and you still wanna try to use it. So there are those options as well.

Sabrina: If you wanna make more money in your business, but you’re exhausted and don’t want to burn yourself out while you do it, I made something just for you.

It’s called More Money, Less Burnout, and it’s a free 14-day business reset with short daily audios, all under three minutes, plus one tiny action step to help you create more income, better boundaries, and some breathing room in your business. It’s simple, self-paced, and designed to actually fit into real life.

You can grab it now at sabrinagebhart.com/business-reset, or check the show notes for the link The other part of pro- post-season is what happens after the session, right? Like, so we’ve talked about the editing, but then what happens? What happens with the client communication, the follow-up, making sure clients know what to expect and all of that?

How can we make that process better for our clients and also smoother for us?

Emily: Uh, I mean, again, a lot of it comes down to automation, um, not having to be responding to clients saying, “When is my gallery coming?” Right? That they just know, and that even after that gallery is delivered, that there’s follow-up after that about how to download it, how to select their images or buy prints or use a print credit, right, whatever your system is for, for post, you know, gallery.

But all of that being automated, even past the 30 days or whatever after their gallery is delivered. Because first of all, people forget, and busy season for us is also busy season for a lot of moms if you’re a family photographer, right? Like, just everything happens in fall. There’s fall plays and there’s Halloween and there’s just all the things.

They forget to download their photos. They forget to buy their prints. So continuing the follow-up, like past 30 days, like, you know, what they need to do, how to purchase more images can be so helpful, and honestly, it can get you more money. I think that that’s the thing that people underestimate.

Underestimate is the word I’m looking for. Underestimate about follow-up is follow-up is what makes you more money. I make more money on mini sessions because of follow-up. I make more money just in general because I don’t just let people ghost me. I ask them to, you know, “Why aren’t you booking? Do you have more questions?

Can we set up a consult call?” Right? But all of that is automated. I’m not doing any of that follow-up on my own. I’m not having to remember any of it. It’s just happening because I’ve set up those systems in my gallery delivery service, ’cause that has automations, um, set up, and on my CRM side.

Sabrina: I, I think that part is huge when you said you don’t have to remember to do it, because in the fall, we’re not remembering anything extra.

Like, we’re not. We’re really not And there is so much money on the backend. So many of photographers, and again, I wanna pick on you if you’re newer in business, lovingly pick on you ’cause we’ve been there. You don’t know what you don’t know. Oftentimes, we deliver the gallery and we’re like, done, done, done with that.

Move on. And you’re missing so much. Not only potential to make more money, but potential to continue having a great experience, which is what refers, like it’s gonna make them tell people about you and also come back to you, right? We don’t wanna ghost people after we send them their gallery. We wanna follow up and see if they want products.

We wanna follow up and see if they want an upgrade. We wanna follow up and see if they want a reminder to get on your next session. We wanna follow up asking for a Google review. We wanna follow up a couple weeks later and say, “I just wrote a blog post about your session, and I was giggling because it reminded me of little Jenny and when she did the da, da, da, da thing.”

You know, there’s so much relational building That will set you apart in the post gallery delivery.

Emily: It makes a huge, huge difference, and it… When you, when you choose not to do that, you just have to understand that you are – you’re leaving referrals on the table, you’re leaving reviews on the table, you’re leaving money on the table, and all of that honestly leads to more money.

Not to make it all about money, but we’re doing this, we’re running our business to support our lives, right? And so if you want to have a successful business, follow-up is, like, a huge part of that, and it does not have to be manual at all. It can 100% be automated.

Sabrina: I think this is another one of those things that sets the professionals and the hobbyists apart.

This is, this is one of the things where, you know, the hobbyists are like, “Venmo me $50.” You know, “DM me to book. Venmo me $50. I’ll meet you at this park and text you a dropped pin.” And then they, like, email a, you know, a Dropbox folder with the ga- I mean,

Emily: that- Oh, man. I’ve been in all of those places, Sabrina. I have done all of those things, right?

My first galler- quote, unquote, “gallery delivery service” was a, like, private gallery on my Squarespace website. That was my gallery delivery.

Sabrina: That’s pretty, that’s pretty great for that, where you started, okay?

Emily: Well, but it was, you know, comparatively, you know, they couldn’t buy prints. They couldn’t pay me any more money.

They… Nothing. It was just like, “Here you go,” and they kind of had to figure out how to download them. Honestly, I don’t even know how they did that. Like, one by one maybe? I don’t know. That’s terrible. Um, but it’s, you know, the, it was, it was something at the time. But yes, I will also say you mentioned Venmo me the $50.

That is also a hill I will die on. Not professional. Also, just so hard to keep track of. There are such… Like, CRMs make it so easy for you to get money, and also automated to do reminders for money, and, like, that’s the last thing you wanna have to do is be like, “Hey, can you pay me please?”

Sabrina: The other thing I always tell people is I know that w- I’m a…

I use Venmo, like, weekly, okay? Like, I get it. It’s a great thing in today. Love it. However, when you’re talking about doing business, and this is just a PSA for anyone, if you did not know this, Venmo and, and Zelle are the top two ways that you will get scammed for money. They are not protected by banks, even though they are attached to banks.

They are, uh, you can Google this. I’m not making this up. You can Google this. They are a huge scam. When you, when people take money out of those two things, you will not get it back, period. So if you leave large sums of money in that, you are just opening yourself up for fraud and for a re- being put in a real pickle, okay?

So even if you’re just using it to, like, pay your babysitter, let your balance sit at zero. Like, always transfer it out. Do not leave money there, because it is really, really risky, and it’s not meant to be a bank account. It’s not meant to hold stuff. It is meant to quickly transfer. Okay? So yeah, don’t use that for business.

Okay, let’s move on to the third. Uh, this is my favorite. I- … I love this so deeply, and I’m so happy that you think that it is one of the three keys to success in the fall. We are going to talk about boundaries, and if you’re listening, do not hit skip to the next episode, okay? ‘Cause boundaries and mindset, man, people are like, “Oh, I don’t need that.

Oh, I’m good. I’m fine.” They wanna hear about the real tactical stuff, and I’m like, “I promise you, you need to hear about boundaries.” Okay, so just, just hear us out here. Why do you think that this is the one step that photographers skip? What’s the story we all are telling ourselves when it comes to boundaries in our business?

Emily: Yeah. I think, um, you know, it’s probably about money, and it’s also about the hustle. We get in this mindset or when we start a business that we have something to prove when it comes to running our business, that we have to prove it, whether it’s to ourselves, to our family, to our friends, to our previous coworkers, that we’ve got this and we can just, like, be amazing and be so busy and, you know, I’m shooting all, every weekend, all weekend, and I’m, oh, I’m editing now, and look at how busy I am.

And that is just going to collapse on you, right? Like, at some point, that is just fully going to collapse on you because it’s, it’s just not sustainable. And really, you have nothing to prove, right? Like, you are, you are running a business. And whether you are doing one shoot every weekend or zero shoots on the weekends because that is the boundary you’ve held, n- neither one of those are morally better than the other We also get stuck in that comparison trap, right?

We see the other photographers online or on social media, and we’re like, “Oh my gosh, look at all the things they’re doing,” right? But we don’t know what their back end looks like. We don’t know what their life and their relationships look like, and that can just get so icky to always be stuck in that, like, proving yourself comparison trap.

Ugh, it just, it just hurts. It just hurts.

Sabrina: It does. I, I can speak to this so deeply because… And I will say, I don’t think all personality types fall into the hustle or the look how busy I am. I don’t. I think some women naturally don’t have that problem. I wanna specifically talk to the Enneagram threes, ’cause we’re the ones that are like, “Oh God, she’s speaking to my soul.”

‘Cause that was me. I wanted people… Y’all, this is gonna sound so egotistical. Just hear me out here. I’m telling you this story to be vulnerable. I wanted people to know my name. I live in a city of a million people. Let that sit in. I live in a city of a million people, and I wanted my name known in the community.

That’s ridiculous. And any time we would go out to eat or go to, like, a preschool fundraiser or, or whatever, and I would meet somebody new, and they would be like, “Oh, you’re the photographer,” I felt like I was so cool. You know what that’s a sign of? I was working with too many people. I was working with hundreds of families a year.

That’s insane. That’s insane. When you’ve got little kids and you’re, like you, are the primary mothering figure and doing all of the things and trying to keep your marriage afloat, like, that’s absolutely insane. But I wore it as a badge of honor. Yes, I was crumbling. Yes, I was, uh, so overwhelmed. Yes, I had no time.

I was, quote unquote, watching movies with my kids on my laptop editing, like, trying to bang stuff out, right? Uh, but I wore it as a badge of honor because, like, look at all the people I’m working with. Look at how full my calendar is. People know my name. It is so dumb. And you’re right, it’s not sustainable because at some point I was like, wait a minute, I’m doing this all for recognition or for a popularity contest, quote unquote.

And that’s when I really started to prioritize what my definition of success actually was. And it has nothing to do with those things. But I had let the Enneagram three ego, like Run with it, you know?

Emily: Yeah. And you and I have talked about this before. I have definitely been in that, in that place before and wanting to…

That, that ambition just, like, keeps driving you. But then, like, taking a step back, it’s like, what am I doing this for? Am I doing it for, you know, the, the glory, the good feelings about myself, whatever, or am I doing this so that I can have a relationship with my family and my child and take, you know, a weekend off to go on vacation or, you know, just step outside of the house?

Those are the things that are so much more important. I was re- recently watching a documentary, the Martha Stewart documentary, which I don’t know if anybody saw, but, but that, it really hit home with me when it comes to women in business because she was this incredibly ambitious person, but at what cost, right?

At what cost to her soul, her, her family, her relationships, all of the things, right? And is that the, the type of business owner that I want to be, right? Not to compare myself with Mar- Martha Stewart, but right? But on a s- a much smaller scale, um, much, much smaller scale. I want to be someone who, like, is able to prioritize my family first, able to prioritize my health first, all of those things.

And so boundaries are, like, the cornerstone of that ability, right? It’s like if I don’t have boundaries, then all of that is going to go out the window.

Sabrina: And I just wanna be really clear for the listener, I know if you’ve been here for a while, you’ve heard me say this, but it is 1,000% possible to hit whatever revenue goal you want and also have whatever lifestyle you want.

That is the beauty of being an entrepreneur, is you get to make up the rules and you get to create your own map. It is not a, “Oh, I can only hit six figures if I, if I work weekends,” or, “I can only do this if I do this.” No, no, no, there are, there is no… It’s literally a mix-and-match bag, grab bag. You can make it up, and I have coached hundreds of women through this.

And Emily, you know this. Like, it is possible to do whatever you want, and boundaries are a huge part of that. So don’t let yourself get sucked up into the fake rules of what being a, quote unquote, “successful photographer” looks like, because they’re just not true. So we are t- when we’re talking about boundaries, we’re specifically talking about capacity and time boundaries today.

So how do you decide what your capacity is? Like, what’s the actual math on how many mini session dates or how many weddings or how many full spots or whatever is, quote unquote, “enough”?

Emily: I love talking about this because, um, I think once you do it, it just, like, oh, it frees you so much. It’s, like, so amazing.

So I plan my fall in January, and I- for some people, that may sound insane, ’cause you’re like, “How am I ever possibly supposed to know what fall is going to look like in January?” But let me explain. So I plan my fall in January. I plan all of my mini session dates. I plan all of my fall session dates. What days am I going to take family sessions?

I plan weekends off. I plan holidays. Does it shift a little bit during the year? Absolutely. Do things come up, a wedding, whatever, you know, friends get together that you have to shift things? Totally. But when you start in January with a fall calendar that you’re like, “This is what I’m going to do,” then saying no is considerably easier.

And the way that I do this is I start backwards. It’s like how much money do I need to pay myself? That’s number one. How much money am I paying myself every month? Therefore, how much money do I need to make? So you’ve gotta, like, extrapolate that out to your, you know, all of your expenses and all of your taxes and all of your retirement savings, all of those things, right?

And then how much you’re paying yourself every month, and then you can divide that by the number of sessions, right? And then you know how many sessions you can take, where they’re happening, whether they’re mini sessions or full sessions, and that’s it. Your, your math is done. And then you say no And that is absolutely the hardest thing for a photographer to do when there is money on the table.

They… Somebody sends you a DM or they inquire and they’re like, “Oh, but I just need…” That’s how it always happens. “Oh, I just need a few Christmas card photos. Oh, I just need my family, you know, my family’s only here on this weekend. Oh, I just…” Right? It’s the bane of our existence as family photographers, but it is, it’s gonna happen, and it’s going to happen when you’re like, “Oh, man, that extra 500,000 bucks could be real sweet right now.”

But when you hold the boundary on the back end, ooh, you’re gonna be so happy, because I’ve done this so many times. “I just need you to come,” and this was early on in my career when I was doing everything for everyone, and I was driving everywhere. “Oh, we, we’re gonna be vacationing in Napa. Can you just come do our family photos here?”

And I said sure. And then it was three and a half hours of my life driving back and forth, and then the editing and all of the things, right? Deciding those boundaries is going to save you so much time, so much energy, and I think that when it really boils down to it, it actually is going to make you more money, because you’re going to be just doing the things that you want, you need, and you’re able to on capacity-wise.

So you’re not gonna get sick. You’re gonna be able to spend more time with your family. Maybe you’re not spending more money on medical bills, right? That’s gonna save you money.

Sabrina: The thing about it is we’ve all taken a session when we shouldn’t have, right? We’ve all taken the one more session ’cause we’re like, “Well, I can do that.

I, technically I have time,” or, “Technically I’m available,” or, or, “It’s close,” or, “It would be easy,” or whatever, and it’s money on the table, right? Every single time we do that, it’s the worst session. We’re, we’re miserable there. We’re pissed at ourselves coming home. We’re… I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s never worth it.

And I always tell people, especially if you are, are a person that struggles to say no, it’s one thing if you’ve never set your capacity before, and, you know, but you know you’re gonna be good about holding to it, you, just going through that process. Great. I love that for you. But if you’re like many, where it’s like, okay, setting capacity is step one, but then saying no is actually the harder of the steps, right?

If that’s you Have a canned email written, please, so that you’re not having to say no to people. Like, just automatically send it. And my favorite hack is if you’re one of those people that deeply struggles with, like, being the bad guy, you can create a fake assistant and send an email from Jenny, from your assistant Jenny, and it can be from you, but it can be signed from Jenny.

You can create an email that says assistant@yourwebsite.com, and literally it just takes the pain away ’cause you’re like, “Well, Jenny’s sending it, not me,” right? They’re gonna be mad at her, not me. The other hack I like to give people is if that’s also not enough for you, if you’re like, “Okay, that’s helpful, but it’s still really bad,” if you’re one of these photographers that is hyper popular in your area and you’re just, you have inquiries pouring in constantly, it’s like drinking from a fire hose, first of all, we need to talk about ways to make that stop for you.

But if that’s you, change your contact form in the fall. Put up a banner on your website that says, “Booking the next year…” You can take your contact form off, like, make it just say, “I am no longer booking,” or, “Bookings are on pause. Get on my newsletter list.” You can also set your auto-responded email to be like, “Thank you so much, but booking is on pause for the next 60 days.”

You can make it so that the boundary is set and held without you having to do anything. It’s like protecting yourself from yourself. There’s so many ways around that, so it’s figuring out how you struggle with this, and before you get too busy and overwhelmed, setting a plan to protect yourself, right?

Emily: Yeah. I had to do this obviously during maternity leave, and it was hard because I, I set up for myself, I set a boundary that I wasn’t gonna work the full month before my daughter was born, which thank goodness, ’cause she was born early. And so I was getting an enormous amount of inquiries during that time, which was hilarious.

It

Sabrina: just- It’s the universe. The universe is like- … “We’re gonna test you here. Are you actually gonna hold to that?”

Emily: It was so funny to me how many inquiries I was getting for both, like, families, maternity, newborn, everything, all, all that were happening within the four months that I was taking for my maternity leave, right?

But I had held that boundary, and I just had an auto-responder. It was very simple. “I am currently on maternity leave. I am not taking any inquiries through this date. If your date is after that, I’ll respond to you. If it’s not, here’s some referrals for people that are available.” Very, very simple. And then some of those people actually came back to me after, right?

So they maybe did a maternity or a newborn session with somebody else, and they came back to me for family photos, right? They did wanna work with me, but I just wasn’t available, and it wasn’t a big deal, right? And even if they did go on to somebody else, great. More beauty and wealth for those people. I don’t need to have every single inquiry.

I’m not the right photographer for everyone. It’s totally fine. That took me a long time to get to that place, but I will say, like, when you do say no, and you do hold that boundary on especially an inquiry that it’s a, “Oh, I just need,” right? Even with a friend I’m gonna put that out there. Even with a friend, if it is a weekend that you have set aside for yourself, that you have said, “I am not working on this weekend,” it is okay, and it’s, it is going to feel better to you.

It’s also gonna feel okay to that friend, right? They’re gonna be like, “Oh, wow, look at you holding that boundary.” And I’ve had this happen to me. I, I’ve reached out to photographers, and they’ve said, “Hey, I’m, I’m fully booked right now,” and great. Good for you. Like, I’m, I’m proud of you, and we’ll book later on down the road, or I’ll go to somebody else, and that’s not a big deal.

Sabrina: That’s another thing that people realize, or they think, “Oh my gosh, if I say no to people, they’re gonna be mad at me, or they’re gonna get an icky taste in their mouth,” but it actually makes you look more professional. It actually makes you look more professional, and it’s a good thing. Uh, it also trains our clients to reach out earlier, which is also a good thing, okay?

When we’re talking about being at, yeah, being at capacity, like train them that they can’t reach out on October 15th and think that you’re gonna be able to squeeze them in, right? So if somebody’s listening right now, it’s August, and they’re like, “Okay, I feel like I’m behind in all three of these areas. I feel like I’m on a fast train into burnout.

Help me. What can I do?” Where do they start? What’s a kind of order of operations they can take between now and mid-September in the next few weeks that will make a vast difference for them without having to, like, do an entire CRM overhaul?

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest thing that we talked about today that’s kind of like the unifying theme with all of these is having some templated emails that you can go to, um, because all of the, all of these are going to kind of feed into that, whether it’s your initial booking inquiry email that has a booking link or something really, really specific for a next step, whether it’s your follow-up emails after a gallery is delivered and you can just send a sequence of emails of what they need to do next in order to download their images, print their images, refer you, give you a review, right?

Those are kind of your set follow-ups, or that templated, “No, I’m not available” email. “Thank you so much for inquiring, but I’m fully booked,” or, “Thank you so much, but I’m not taking any more sessions this year,” or whatever you want to say. And if you want to take it from an assistant, great. That is a, that’s a great tip.

But those, those templated emails are going to save you so much time, so much energy, and so much heartache on the back end, um, when you are just, like, feeling anxious about any of those things. Responding quickly to an inquiry makes you anxious. You’ve got a templated email for that. Asking for people to upgrade their gallery makes you anxious.

You’ve got a template for that, right? So, and then obviously on the, the saying no, which I think that is so hard for so many people, but when you set that boundary, it’s gonna make you feel so much better.

Sabrina: Yep, it is. And you’re gonna feel so good when you roll into your free weekend and you’re seeing all your photography friends, like, drowning in mini sessions, and you’re like, “I gave myself the weekend off, and I stuck to it, and this is amazing.”

You know, you’re gonna be so much better off for it Let’s paint a picture for what November can look like and feel like for someone who has all three of these systems running and supporting them. Like, what’s the flip side of the burnout and the misery? What can it actually feel like and look like for somebody?

Emily: Yeah, I think the flip side is you walk into Thanksgiving dinner and you’ve been able to, like, bake the pie ’cause you weren’t just sitting and editing, right? Or, uh, you are able to go to your kid’s fall play and you’re not, like, worried about the fact that you’re missing out on time on editing or responding to people or any of those things.

Go on that vacation to Hawaii, whatever, you know. There’s so many different things that, that happen that you’re able to just, like, freely do and not feel the dread, anxiety, I could be working, I should be working mentality. Something that I started doing pretty on in my bus- early on in my business is, like, taking basically all of December off from sessions, and that also just gave me so much of my time and freedom back that I didn’t feel like I was going into this holiday season, like, I’ve got to edit six sessions before Christmas.

Like, they were done and delivered before Thanksgiving, and then I’m just moving on with my life, and it, it really does just … I get to relax during the holidays. I get to be with my family and not feel fully overwhelmed during that time.

Sabrina: Yeah, that was always the marker for me was, do I want to pick up my camera and participate in my own family’s holidays?

And I never would want to if I was still shooting and editing, because I don’t have time for myself. Like, the cobbler has no shoes, right? And I, and so I set kind of the same timeline that you did. I would always finish fall families by, like, November 10th. Like, that, like, that was generally around then was my last, if you want holiday turnaround, this is when it is.

And so after that, it’s, you know, a couple newborns sprinkled in, something change of pace, newborns, first 48s, but families are done and delivered before Thanksgiving so that from Thanksgiving through the end of the year, again, I’m doing maybe a couple newborns, maybe a couple first 48s, but that’s it. I have the capacity to rest, but also I have the desire to pick up my camera and photograph kids doing gingerbread houses, and Christmas morning, and reading the Christmas Eve story, all that stuff.

Whereas I had spent so many years not documenting our own holidays because I wanted to throw my camera at the wall, and I had so little desire to edit another image, even if it was my adorable children. The realization of that is like, what the heck? Because I s- became a photographer because I love documenting and I love photos and the creativity of it, and I got to the point where I didn’t even wanna document the most magical time of the year with my own family.

Like, that is a huge problem. It’s a huge red flag. And so that’s what it feels like, knowing that all of your clients are taken care of, you served your people well, and now you get this long breath of fresh air to actually enjoy the holidays. Are they crazy? Yes. Are they chaotic and expensive? Yes. But still, you wanna enjoy them.

That’s possible. That’s absolutely possible.

Emily: It’s definitely possible. And I think the other part about, like, setting those boundaries and setting your fall calendar, which obviously, like, you may not be able to, to get to that point right now, but, you know, following year, like, starting in January, making sure that that’s mapped out.

Um, and especially if you’re listening to this episode later on, like, you know, that’s a, that’s a good tip. But even if you take one weekend off during that, that fall season, like, that one weekend where you are not doing anything, you are not shooting, you are not editing, you are not respo- Like, that can really save your sanity and save you from the, that burnout later on, that you’re saying no to any sessions during that one weekend.

If you can make it multiple weekends, great. If you can switch people to during the week, great. Right? But if you can just, like, you know, s- save yourself At least one that isn’t full of everything, um, that can really help you.

Sabrina: Yeah. I think that’s such a great tip. U- unless you are fully booked for the year, which I doubt many people listening are at that point, if you’ve got a couple days here and there that you’re technically still leaving open, I would flip those over to be white space at this point, and just let yourself be done.

And if you h- aren’t booked for the year, plan some white space for yourself. Give yourself that gift. I also love taking a full weekend. I always encourage people to plan a trip for a weekend. It doesn’t have to be anything exotic. It can be a road trip, but plan a trip where your laptop stays at home, you are fully unplugged, and you get to recharge with your family.

It feels so counterintuitive to do that in the fall, um, but it is such a gift for yourself to not have to think about work, not have to check your email, not have

Emily: to edit. We’re taking a full family vacation during the fall this year.

Sabrina: Yeah, it’s

Emily: such a gift. Like, full, full week and a half, and I’m really excited about it, and also not worried about it at all.

Like, it is, it is going to be fun and great, and I’m not worried that I’m losing two weekends of my fall. I’m, like, excited that I’m losing two weekends of my fall.

Sabrina: Yeah. That’s amazing. I love that for you guys. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, this has been such a great chat. I knew it was going to be. I hope everybody took tons of notes, and Emily and I would both love to hear from you if this episode resonated, so send either or both of us messages and let us know.

But my friend, let everybody know where they can find you and if you have anything that you want to shout out that can help them put these systems in place.

Emily: Definitely. So you can find me at Woodall Creative Co. on Instagram, and website is woodallcreative.co. And I have, uh, a couple of things, but I think one thing that’s really fun, I have a system style quiz that will just, like, help you to identify what your system style is, whether you are, like, a little bit more type A or a little bit more on that, like, fun, creative side.

It links you with a Friends character, ’cause I’m a big Friends fan. So, um, it’s fun and it also is going to give you, I’m gonna send you afterwards actionable steps that you can take over the course of a week, um, that give you, like, a little bit of, um, insight into what’s gonna work for your specific system style.

So you can find that at woodallcreative.co/systemsstylequiz.

Sabrina: Amazing. I will put those links in the show notes. This was so fun. I can’t wait to hear what everybody thinks, and I, I hope that you will take one step from what we talked about. One step and implement it to make your fall a little bit better, uh, because it doesn’t have to be as crazy as it always is.

So thank you for being here, my friend. This was such a great chat. 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 at sabrinagebhart.com/podcast. Come find me and connect over on the Gram at xo sabrina gebhart.

And if you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you’d hit that subscribe button and leave me a review. Until next time, my friends.