Today’s episode is the final part in the current replay series, and features a conversation between myself and Amanda Warfield of the Chasing Simple podcast. Amanda and I are chatting about business sustainability and what it means to set your business up for long-term success. We are sharing practical tips and action steps that you can take today to avoid burnout and create a thriving business.
The Shoot It Straight Podcast is brought to you by Sabrina Gebhardt, photographer and educator. Join us each week as we discuss what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, Shoot It Straight Podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
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This episode is brought to you by The Round Table, a community built for female photographers who want to continue growing their business while forging industry friendships along the way! Every month, you get access to three new pieces of content covering a vast variety of topics from myself and guest speakers. Come join us and get access to the content and private Facebook community!
Review the Show Notes:
Sabrina’s introduction on Chasing Simple (1:30)
From photographer to mentorship (4:27)
Serving better by serving less (6:30)
What to do with white space in your calendar (9:13)
How much white space to set aside (13:47)
Practical tips for creating a sustainable business (16:00)
The action step to take this week (23:03)
Sabrina’s book recommendation (25:03)
Connect with Amanda:
Episode Links:
The Creative’s Guide to Sustainability
Review the Transcript:
Sabrina Gebhardt
Welcome back to the shoot it straight podcast. So we are nearing the end of the replace series. And this is the very last episode that I’m sharing for now, this replay is a chat with my friend Amanda Warfield of the chasing simple podcast and we are talking all about business sustainability and how important and what it means to have a business that is set up for sustainable success. What does that look like? What does that mean? And here’s the thing. Whether you are a photographer or creative entrepreneur or somewhere in between, you will get something from this episode. Not only do I share part of my own personal story, but Amanda and I talk through what business sustainability looks like what people struggle with, and some tips to get started and changes to make. I know that you will love this episode. So let’s dive in. Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gephardt. Here I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur. while balancing business motherhood and life. myself along with my guests will get vulnerable through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in yet willing to talk about the hard stuff to to shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
Amanda Warfield
Sabrina, I am so excited to have you on can you just give everyone a quick introduction to who you are and what you do and who you serve?
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, my name is Sabrina Gebhardt, I am a lifestyle photographer of almost 12 years, and I do newborns and families and I am in the Fort Worth Texas area. And in the past six years, I have dipped into coaching, business coaching and mentoring and all of that I have a course and a mastermind and a membership and all the things. But honestly, I have found such a passion in relating and watching other female creatives go, You know what I mean? Like seeing the light bulbs go off and seeing them make just minor tweaks in their business. And then things just explode. That’s my favorite thing in the whole wide world. I love connecting with my clients too. But the connecting through coaching, and business mentorship has been absolutely incredible.
Amanda Warfield
What are some common tweaks? This is absolutely not what we’re planning on talking about today. What are some common tweaks that you see, is there any kind of common thread with those that you see your clients making that really help with a sustainable growth? Or is it just always different from business to business? I’m just curious.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, yeah, there’s definitely common threads. And you say it’s not relating to what we’re going to talk about. But it totally is relating to what we’re going to talk about. Everybody’s trying to do too much at the same time. And it doesn’t matter what industry they’re in. Most of who I coach is photographers, but this happens is everybody. creative entrepreneurs, especially women, we think we have to wear all the hats do all the things in our home with our kids and our business. We have to serve all the people. We can’t say no. And so it all filters back to just taking on too much.
Amanda Warfield
You’re so right, you know,
Sabrina Gebhardt
I’m not sure if you’re
Amanda Warfield
on Tik Tok. But there’s always this running joke about hot girls have stomach issues. And I I’ve always found it funny because I can relate right. And I had this realization the other day, that the reason it seems like every woman has stomach issues is probably because we don’t take the time to feed ourselves three square meals a day. We don’t take the time to drink enough water during the day. We don’t take the time to move our body to get enough sleep because we’re always going and we’re always doing so. Yeah, I’m really glad that we were having this conversation right now. It’s something every single one of us relates to.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, I mean, we can be so concerned about our children’s health and well being our spouse’s health, our parents, whatever, mindfulness for everybody else, but taking mindfulness for ourselves and our body and our intuition and our needs. We don’t
Amanda Warfield
it’s just one more thing.
Amanda Warfield
Yeah, it’s it’s so much on top of so much.
Amanda Warfield
Right, exactly. So I’m curious, how did you go from photography business, to helping other business owners with that sustainability piece and really creating whitespace in their lives?
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah. So like many people’s stories, you know, it’s because I’ve been through it, right. Like I did not set out for that I don’t have any kind of life coaching experience, or therapy experience or anything like that. And when I started teaching, it was really just the one on one mentoring teaching kids ographers how to grow their photography business, how to take better images. And that started to develop that, like I can really connect with women, I can pinpoint what their issues are and help them. But as far as how it turned into more of generalizing like a sustainable business and mindfulness and taking care of ourselves, I’m pointing to myself here, taking care of ourselves, so that we can better ourselves and then better our business. That is like life experience. So I had been in business for about seven years, when I had several personal tragedies happen back to back to back, all within like a six month window. And as you can imagine, that led to extreme overwhelm, really bad burnout, and then depression. And it was this whole gamut of things. And working through a therapist and doing like, a million types of self care, to pull myself out of that, not only for my business, but for my family and my personal life. My friends, my kids, I learned all these tools. And I started to realize, as I was coming through it that yes, I had extreme circumstances. But all of these little pieces are things that female creatives deal with on the regular, and if I can help share some of these things, so that they’re not dealing with the same stuff or don’t get to the same point I do. I’m absolutely going to.
Amanda Warfield
Yeah, and I, I think that’s so important, because it’s not if we burn ourselves out, but when? Absolutely. So once you started to implement all of these tools, what kind of result did you see within your business from implementing those tools and implementing that? whitespace? Yeah,
Sabrina Gebhardt
so it’s really scary for creative entrepreneurs, like when you pull back to the basics, we start a business because we want to serve people because we want to make money, right? It’s just this it’s the cycle. And people that are in the beginning stages, think that like, to make money equals serving a lot of people like it’s a quantity thing. But what people who have been around the block for a while will tell you is it’s not necessarily quantity, its quality, right? Being able to serve people better by serving less people, right. And so working through that transition of okay, I need to charge more I need to serve less was huge. And then really implementing that whitespace, so that I did not feel the physical effects of burnout and overwhelm, right. And those effects can be physically being dizzy, not being able to sleep, gut issues, you know, breathing, like constantly taking having to take deep breaths. I mean, there’s all kinds of like physical manifestations of burnout and overwhelm, and implementing the whitespace, taking on less clients saying no to things so that I had more margin, allowed me space to breathe, allowed my nervous system time to calm down and stop, like radiating right to anyone who’s ever been through the deep throes of burnout, which does lead to depression, like they go there. One is an entryway into the other. But you know that a lot of times when you are deeply depressed, you’re numb, like, you’re beyond the point of caring, you know, and I’m not talking about like deep, deep depression, where we need medication and intervention, I’m just talking about the low level depression that so many people carry around all the time. We’re just numb, we go through the motions of photographing clients or serving people, and we do it and we’re we’re doing okay, but that passion and that fire is not there. And like, we just don’t care, you know. And so implementing that whitespace allows room for your nervous system to come down for you to breathe for you to have that passion back.
Amanda Warfield
As I’m listening to this, I’m thinking, Yes, this is also important. I need this, I need to be better about this. But there’s also a large part of me and I imagine at least some of the listeners have this same gut instinct of what do I do with that? whitespace? Because I know that for me, the second I clear whitespace in my schedule, if I don’t have something that I’m directly doing, I can’t live with work. Once you made that white space, which we’ll get into how you did but yeah, once you did create that white space, so you could step back in your business. What did you do with that time? What did that one place look like for you practically?
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah. So first of all, this is the way I do it. There’s probably a million ways, right? But I am right there with you. I am an Enneagram three, I’m a doer. I like to be busy. I like to take on all the projects. I like all the things and I really have a hard time sitting still really physically hard time sitting still. I mean, right? It’s just I don’t do that very well. And whitespace came out of when I was working with a therapist, and we came to the conclusion that like that is what I needed. I needed actual dead space where I’m not doing anything. She gave me that assignment. And then I went to the next appointment. She’s like, how did that go? And I’m like, it didn’t, you know, because I couldn’t pull it off. And she’s like, Nope, we’re gonna put some systems in place, what happens? Who’s your best friend, you need to, you need to literally like phone a friend here and have them follow up with you to make sure that you are actually doing nothing. And so that’s what I did. So I told my best friend, okay, on Wednesday, from 10 to noon, I have whitespace, I need you to actually check in with me at 10am or 1005. Okay. And she did. And she’s like, What are you doing? And you know, and I’m telling her, she’s like, then she gets all preachy on me, nope, this is your, this is your assignment. So that’s how it went. For the first few times, it was really uncomfortable, I had to like phone a friend to have somebody hold me accountable, hold me actually accountable to not doing anything, and what it is turned into. And what I actually like to teach people is you can fill that space with something with an activity, you don’t have to just like lay and look at the ceiling. But the key is to fill it with whatever your soul needs that day. So the difference is, if you’re thinking to yourself, a pedicure is always my favorite type of self care, I have whitespace on Friday, I’m going to make an appointment for a pedicure. Okay. What happens is you wake up Friday morning, and you could be super jazzed about said pedicure. But now you have an appointment, you have somewhere to be you have to make sure you get out of the house on time you have to get dressed, you have to, you know, there’s just a little level of stress added to it, even though it’s relaxing and going to be wonderful. Whereas if you just gave your spouse self that space of time on Friday, and woke up Friday morning and said, I’ve got two hours, what do I need to do today, what I really need, you could decide on a whim to go get a pedicure, you could also decide to lay down, take a nap, to read your book, to phone your bestie and say, Hey, come meet me for brunch, whatever it is. And so that’s that is the difference for me is you can use very rarely Am I actually sitting on the couch with my feet up, but I’m giving myself self the gift of what do I need today? It cannot be work. It cannot be chores, it cannot be related to my children. It has to be what is Sabrina need.
Amanda Warfield
I like those parameters that you set for yourself. Here’s my biggest issue. I could have set aside the whitespace time. No problem every Friday night. My husband plays video games with his friends. I have my own whitespace it’s great. Yeah, the problem comes when I get to the whitespace I can’t figure out for the life of me what I need or want to do. And that’s the hardest part is I sit there and I go okay, well, I could do piano I could go bake something I could play The Sims. I could you know, like I have all these thoughts that I’m just spiraling of, well, maybe I should do this. Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I should do this. Maybe I should do this. And then I don’t decide and I credibly scroll tick tock for
Sabrina Gebhardt
hours. I wonder if I’m so my first thought my first thought is, I wonder if because you’re trying to do it. At the end of the day, your brain is incapable of making that decision. Because you’re not fresh. You know what I mean? Like maybe down the line, you could have Friday nights, like after you’re in the habit of doing something, but maybe to get started, you haven’t been able to start implementing it. Maybe you need to allow yourself a mid morning one day something when you’re more fresh. When you are more in tune with like, what do I need today? You know what I mean? Because I know, in the evenings I’m like, tapped tapped out, totally tapped out. So I don’t know that I’d be able to make that decision either. You know,
Amanda Warfield
I have literally never thought about that. But that makes so much sense. So much sense. Wow.
Sabrina Gebhardt
I hope this helps. I hope.
Amanda Warfield
So then that leads me to my next question, which is how much whitespace? Do you set aside? How do you know? Where to even be going with that?
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, yeah. So the the long answer that I’ll go into? I guess the short end of that answer is it varies for everybody. But the reason being, we all have different capacities for what we can handle, right? physical health, mental health, kids marriage, where you live, what the burdens you’re carrying, if you have a full time job in addition, I mean, there’s just there’s so many different variables of how much you can handle. And the more you’re carrying, the more you need. That’s what I but as far as what those numbers are, it’s gonna be a trial and error. Right? I personally know that during the fall busy season for photographers, I need more of it to unpack from how busy I am. Whereas in the first quarter when I’m not as busy shooting and stuff, I could use a little less of it right. And I also know that in the summer when my kids are all home and it’s a zoo around here, I need it the most but I’m probably not going to get it because I we don’t have that kind of schedule that I can plan for it as these delete, you know, I generally say start with two hours a week, especially if you are very overwhelmed. Like if you’re coming from a really not healthy place, and you’ve been overwhelmed for a really, really long time, and maybe you’re borderline on depression, start with more, give yourself a couple hours a week, but you’re gonna have to figure out what works for you, it might be better for you to have one full day, every other week, or you know, two full days back to back once a month, everybody’s going to be different. But figuring out what feels good for you is getting you to a place where you are not overwhelmed all the time, like, you will start to feel that peel away. And you will feel yourself brighter and lighter and able to manage your day to day more. When you get there. You have found your sweet spot, whatever that is.
Amanda Warfield
I love that. That’s great. I love that I love that you give a practical start here. But also, that’s not going to be the end all be all, I think that’s really important. Other than setting aside that whitespace each week for yourself, what are some other practical ways that you found for yourself or with your clients that can help us move towards a more sustainable business?
Sabrina Gebhardt
Well, it’s nothing mind blowing that you’ve never heard of I know, it’s things that you talk about all the time, but just to really hammer this stuff home holding firm to your boundaries and saying no to things that you know, don’t serve you. The thing with that. One is, oftentimes we have a hard time saying no, maybe you work great with boundaries with work, right? Like we know what projects we do and don’t want. And we say no to those, and that’s fine. But a lot of times female creatives really struggle with saying no to things that sound great, right? Maybe it’s like volunteer commitment or something outside of your business or an opportunity that on paper is perfect for your business. But you’re already at capacity. You know, it’s saying no to the things that really are great. But you have to know and remember that when you are saying yes to something you’re saying no to yourself. And that’s the game changer is being willing to say you know what I do come first or my sanity comes first or my mental health comes first, even if this opportunity is fantastic. It is it’s fantastic. But I still have to say no. So holding firm to your boundaries and saying no is really big one. Can I jump in right there real quick, please, please,
Amanda Warfield
you made the comment. This may be a fantastic opportunity, which are already at capacity. And I want to really encourage everyone, and I’m preaching to myself right here, because I’m terrible at doing this. Even before you hit capacity, really looking at each of those, especially business opportunities. And not only asking, am I at capacity, but is this actually the best possible fit, because there will be other opportunities, and I fell into a terrible habit of, well, this is an opportunity. And I need to take it just because it’s an opportunity that’s presented itself. And I end up in a place where then I get better opportunities that are better fits. And I either have to say no to a better fit. Or I have to say yes. And I burned myself out. And let’s be real. I burned myself out in order to do it. So yeah, I just throw that in there. Because I know that I struggle with that. Yeah, but with every opportunity, it’s not going to be your last opportunity. So evaluate it as if you’re already at capacity, because at some point you will be.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, exactly. And, and I think intuition comes in a lot there. And oftentimes we just ignore it. Especially if you’re newer in business, and you feel like you’re supposed to be saying yes to everything, because oh my gosh, that leads to future growth. And I need future growth because my business is new. Well, not necessarily. I feel like we know and our gut when it’s right. And if there’s even the slightest bit of rumbling that where you’re like, oh, no, this could be not great. You know, if you imagine yourself, you know, months ahead of time doing the thing or turning in the project or talking at the event or shooting the session or whatever that is. And it’s not everything but like sparkles and rainbows. Okay, if there’s any kind of negative facet or emotion attached to actually doing it, then you need to say no, it doesn’t matter what it could lead to doesn’t matter. Because you’re right. More opportunities always
Amanda Warfield
well, and even if there is any doubt in your mind that it’s not the best fit. It may not lead to anything, I’ve certainly sure taken some opportunities that I had to make investments in to be able to take those opportunities that did not pan out for my business. And it really should have listened to my gut and some of those cases. So not every opportunity is going to grow your business. So it’s really important to evaluate and I like that you brought in the the intuition and what is your dad saying? Because that’s an important part.
Sabrina Gebhardt
The other thing that I would say going back to the original question, other things that can help with sustainability and business is getting help. Everybody that’s been in business for 710 12 years knows that and all the newbies You hear it, but they don’t do it. And it’s just pulling the trigger on getting help sooner than later. The faster you get help, the faster you have margin. And honestly, the faster your business grows, you know, being willing to buckle down and invest in whatever kind of help you’re going to invest in, because it is an investment, it’s always better to do it sooner than later. And then being willing to focus only on what matters in your business and cut the fluff. You know, there’s a lot of stuff that we don’t even need to be doing. It doesn’t even matter. But we do it and waste our time anyway, and think it’s this huge thing, and it’s not, and so reevaluating, like what actually needs to get done to move the needle in your business and then cutting the stuff that doesn’t. Yeah, keep
Amanda Warfield
it simple. And there’s so often that that happens, where we think, well, I need to create this sequence, because I’m supposed to have one of those, you’re not really ready for it yet. And so you create said sequence. And then six months later, you realize that it’s not doing your business any good, because now your business has evolved and pivoted and now you actually need one and you have to go back and redo all of that work that you need. So yeah, yeah, only doing things as you need to and not having all of the excess. And the tasks that maybe I can actually move the needle on are just things on your to do list.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, and taking that one step further, keeping your eyes on your own paper. Just because your competitor or your somebody, you know, similar business in your community, or whatever is doing the thing doesn’t mean you have to be doing the thing to doing what serves your people, and what will further your business is what matters, not what’s going around on social media and on the internet with everybody else.
Amanda Warfield
And even courses that you buy into, or educators that you’re learning from, take what you’re learning, because if you’re investing in a course, I’m assuming you’re investing because that is a place where you’re at you need it, we’re not investing just to invest. But even then take what they’re teaching you and strain it through the lens of how can I use this and implement this in my business? And not just okay, they said do this. So I’m going to do this, right, take it in. And that’s why it’s important not to just bulk invest in courses and things like that, but to do one at a time as you need it. So that you can really sit with it and say, Okay, this is what I’ve learned. How do I implement it? Well, in my personal business, because my business is different from their business and all of their their students, businesses. Exactly. Oh, this has been such a great conversation. Sabrina, I think this is important for all of us there, especially as we’re getting towards this time of the year where I think a lot of us are ready to step back, you know, we’re getting towards the Black Friday sales. And all of that’s happening. And it’s moving into December where I know I am just not interested in working all that much indecent. I’m doing the bare minimum, I’m serving my clients. And then I’m kind of done for the remainder of the year. And I’m already looking towards next year. And so I think this is a really well timed conversation. And I’m really, really thankful that you were willing to come on here and have it with me. If you could give everyone one single action step to take this week. What would it be? Okay, so
Sabrina Gebhardt
given the time of year that it is I would love to have everyone go into the Reminders app and their phone, Kay. And I want you to you can either voice recorded as a memo or you can type it out whatever you prefer. But I want you to do an emotional dump on what you are feeling like right now. At the end of a busy season for photographers busy season for creatives selling season, the end of the year, the holidays, all of that do an emotional dump. Are you feeling overwhelmed? Are you feeling burnt out? Are you drained? Do you feel like you didn’t make enough money for all the work? You did? Are you frustrated that you didn’t have an assistant Do you did certain systems not work well for you this year, and they were a constant problem, just dump it out. And then set it as a reminder to go off whatever the start of your launch season is for next year. So if we’re talking to photographers, specifically that are you know, fall heavy, then maybe you send it as a reminder for like June 1, okay? Because that’s going to give you that minder before you start booking for fall so that you can remember, oh, yeah, I was not in a good place. At the end of last year, I need to put some different systems in place, I need to book less sessions, I need to charge more, whatever it is, so that you can actually not make the same mistakes. Because it’s kind of like when you have a newborn and then you you know, this baby grows to be three years old, and all of a sudden you’re like, let’s get pregnant again. And you forget all about the sleepless nights and how hard pregnancy is. It’s the same, like you will come out of burnout. Six months later, you won’t feel the drain anymore and having that reminder to specifically say Oh, that’s right. These are the changes I need to make so that you don’t end up in the same exact place a year from now. I love
Amanda Warfield
that that’s such a practical tip that I had never ever, ever heard anyone say, Oh, good. So what about we end every episode with a book recommendation? So what do you one book that you would recommend for everyone to go read or listen to, and it can be business or fiction or anything in between.
Sabrina Gebhardt
I bounced back and forth between business and fiction and all that. But a book that I read this summer that I really, really loved was we should all be millionaires by Rachael Rogers. Oh my gosh. I mean, it is such a practical, easy read, because it’s a mix of like mindset, feminine wisdom, and then also like practical business stuff, you know, and she’s such an easy read, I actually read it and listen to the audible like in sync, because I just I liked her voice. And I just anyways, it’s a great, great read. And I think every female entrepreneur should read it and read it every single year. Yes,
Amanda Warfield
it’s so so good. And there’s only so many steps that you can take at one time. So we totally next time, you’re ready for the next step. So exactly. Love that one. So good. Sabrina, thank you so much for being here. I know you have a free guide to sustainability for creatives. Can you tell everyone about that and how they can get their hands on it?
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, so Sabrina gephardt.com backslash sustainable, it is 10 steps to making sure your business is set up for long term sustainability, sustainable success, can’t spit out all those S’s. But it’s just a really quick guide of things to make sure that you’re doing in your business so that you can be in business for the long run.
Amanda Warfield
Perfect. Thank you so much, everyone, make sure you go grab that if you didn’t hear the link. It’s in the show notes. And you can also check out all of her social media links and website and things like that there as well.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Before you leave today, I have to tell you about the round table. This is a community I built for female photographers who want to continue growing their business while forging industry friendships along the way. If you enjoy my teaching style on the podcast, then I know you will absolutely love the roundtable. In this group, you will learn practical ways to move your business forward while finding community and accountability with like minded photographers. Every month you will get access to three pieces of content over a broad variety of topics. In the past, we have covered things like pricing, editing, goal setting, website reviews, social media, and even videos for me behind the scenes at real sessions. Members have also had the opportunity to learn from incredible guest speakers and industry leaders on a huge variety of topics. I pride myself in giving you just enough education every month to keep you growing and moving forward. While not overwhelming you with content. Oh and the private Facebook community is absolutely incredible. Consider it your space to ask all the things get all the support and make real life business besties. If you’re ready to join us and take this podcast relationship a bit deeper, you can head over to Sabrina gephardt.com backslash membership and enroll today.
