141: Q2 2025 Business Bestie Chat with Colie James

Sabrina: Welcome to the Shoot at Straight podcast, where honesty meets heart and real talk actually means something. I’m your host, Sabrina Gehart, and each week we get vulnerable, practical, and just a little bit bold so you can feel seen, supported, and ready to take the next step in your photography journey.

Let’s go.

Welcome back to the Shoot at Straight Podcast, my friends. Today is everyone’s favorite. It is another business Bestie Chat with my girl, Coley James, and I’m not gonna let her introduce herself because if you don’t know who she is at this point, go back and listen to another episode. She’s been on the show probably eight times at this point, maybe more.

Um, but we do this thing where every quarter we get together and we have an off the cuff conversation about what’s going on in our businesses. Good, bad, and indifferent. And we are definitely doing that today. I will say that I was just telling Coley before I started this introduction that I really have no notes today.

And truly there are no notes. So you are gonna hear a really real off the cuff conversation and what’s. Going to be, I’m gonna put air quotes around. The word interesting is that I don’t think 2025 is off to the start, that either of us projected back in January or December. And so we’re gonna be really real about what that looks like, what that means, how we’re managing and moving forward with things.

And it’s gonna be a really fun chat. So my friend, welcome back. I’m so glad you’re

Colie: here. I think it’s so funny every time you tell people, and no, there really are no notes. No guys really, this time she has no notes. I mean, Sabrina usually says that, but yet she still has internal notes. She still has things randomly jotted down on a piece of paper, but today she just really doesn’t have anything.

So. We don’t know what we’re gonna talk about. Let’s go, let’s go.

Sabrina: So I think it would be fair to do a little bit of a Q1 recap, let’s call it, because here we are recording this in April. We’re now solidly into Q2. Did anything exciting happen in your business? Do you wanna go first?

Colie: Anything exciting? I feel like I am still being haunted by things that I didn’t accomplish last year, but I will say.

In late March, early April, I am finally feeling like myself, besides having guilt over having things that are half done and like those kinds of things that are lingering from last year, I do finally feel like my brain is firing on all cylinders. I don’t think that I have felt that way in probably 18 months, but um, I’ve gotten some clean bills of health from many doctors.

And I don’t know if it’s changes in medication. I don’t know if it’s changes in my health, but I do really feel like my brain is finally firing. I’m not forgetting things all the time, even though I have created all of the systems in the world to remind me of stuff. At this point, I. I feel like my perspective is probably better now than it has been in any business bestie chat that we have done because last year we started the business bestie at probably the lowest point in my entire life and it really didn’t come across in the recording, but I’m feeling much better now.

So there is that.

Sabrina: I love that. And I’ve seen you several times this quarter, which has been so fun. I. I am probably feeling the opposite of you. Um, uh, and it’s not in a, I I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t call this like a, a mental health thing. We’re not in a situation, but there’s a lot of unrest, um, in my business, which is causing unrest in me because.

I don’t like not knowing things the best. And so yeah, we’ll talk about that later in today’s episode when we get to a little bit further in. I don’t wanna just jump off right off the bat with that, but exciting things for me. Q1 was very exciting and very, very busy. I hosted the second Roots Rise alumni retreat in Palm Springs.

It was Chef’s Kiss. Amazing. Uh, we had an absolute blast with so much fun together. The home we stayed in was iconic. Last year’s first alumni retreat was fantastic. And this one was just like another level better. It was just amazing. So that was a really great way to start off the year. However, right on the heels of that, uh, you and I went to Savannah and did the Route to Rise retreat in Savannah in February and that was also so fun.

We had such a good group. We had great weather, great model families. I mean, start to finish. It was a fantastic time. But two retreats within a month is a bit much, a bit much, not going to do that again. It was really hard to come home from one and literally have to start like the heavy lifting and of all of the details and stuff going into the second one, it was just too close together, too close together.

I also launched a course in the, in the first quarter I launched the personality portrait blueprint. I overlapped that course launch within my photography business when I was photo, like actually photographing my personality portraits. So that was kind of cool to be launching the education piece while the photo piece was happening.

It felt very in real time, and so that went really well in Q1. I don’t know if we are gonna call this exciting or not, but I started seeing a new therapist in the beginning of the year, which is going well. It is hard, you know, we know, like seeing a therapist is not fun all the time. Uh, we know we need it and it’s good for us and.

Good things come from it, but Golly. So you know, sometimes the stuff that comes up, you’re just like, but I don’t want to do that.

Colie: So you and I had a conversation about therapy and I didn’t realize before you went to see that therapist that they were new. You left that piece out just so that you know, or maybe you said it and it just didn’t click in my brain.

Either one is possible, but good for you. I did not know that it was a new therapist. You know, I have severe anxiety about starting over with a new therapist. Like I would rather eat glass than jump off of a bridge. I don’t know. That sounds horrifying to me, but I am glad that you got on the other side of it.

I am gonna also say I. I’m gonna put in a little early vote to do the second or the third, I guess, alumni retreat in Palm Springs because I’m very sad that I missed it. But now I also feel like I should tell you, that’s why you weren’t allowed to come to Palm Springs when I went last week or two weeks ago because I missed Palm Springs in January and you missed Palm Springs in April.

And so now we are even, okay. I guess.

Sabrina: I mean, if that’s the math you wanna use, I’m still not happy about it. Yeah. Seeing a new therapist, so. I had been away from therapy for a couple of years, so it’s not that anything went down with my old therapist. I still love her. I still have a relationship with her, but she wasn’t where I needed to be going.

I. The things she specialized in weren’t things that I needed support in anymore. And so she had kind of graduated me and I’d been a couple years without, and I just kind of, honestly, all of last year I felt the stirring that was like, it’s time to go back. There’s not time to get a therapist. Not really any issues, but like a maintenance thing and.

Kind of ignored it. Kind of ignored it. I don’t have time, whatever. Didn’t wanna find a new one, like you said. That’s hard. And finally, towards the end of last year, I put out some feelers with some friends and this particular woman was recommended to, to me by two different people, which I thought was really, really great.

And I was looking for someone who doesn’t necessarily have a specialty in like a thing, right? My past therapist specialized in grief and trauma, which is what I needed at the time. Then I didn’t need that. Now, I needed somebody who really knows how to deal with supporting like what is called like a high achieving woman, where I’m balancing a lot of plates.

I’m serving other people, but I need somebody to, to be in my back pocket and. That is what she does and it’s been really great so far. We totally clicked on the very first appointment and she saw right through me and called me out on what I needed and I was like, damn, alright, let’s go, let’s go. Um, so it’s been a really good start.

Uh, hard, good, you know. We’ll that under exciting. So here we are. Okay. I’m curious, what struggles did Q1 bring for you?

Colie: I mean, I’m trying to think about what the struggles were. I think the struggles were just still trying to get myself motivated enough to keep going because I feel like in the last 18 months.

I have almost quit my business several times. I mean, and if I was one of those people who allowed myself to make like what I would call instant decisions and just do it, oh yeah, my business would’ve ceased to exist months ago. I mean, every time I have this inkling, I’m like, no, you can’t do it until you’re on the other side of this.

I mean, I’m one of those people that doesn’t make rash decisions. I put things into place very quickly. Because I’m always like, oh, done is better than perfect. You can put it out and fix the shit later. I’m always like that. But once you declare that your business is dead and you take the website down, it’s kind of hard to come back from that.

So every time I get that inkling, I’m like, Nope. You gotta wait until you’re in a better place. And then if that’s what you wanna do, then you have permission to do it. I mean, James is like, if your business is no longer serving you, I mean my husband would not use those words, but basically he’s, if your business is not serving you figure out what you wanna do next.

But I am feeling better. I am still feeling like I let a lot of people down last year and I didn’t do things in the same high achieving fashion that I always have. So I feel like what was disappointing in Q1 is that I still have those kind of lingering things. I still have a lot of avoidance, like. I don’t know if I’m having high, high anxiety about something, I would rather just sit in bed and watch Netflix rather than like actually deal with it.

And that is what helped me compartmentalize for the last 18 months. But that’s not gonna serve me very well going forward. So I think I’m trying to get over that. I’m trying to get to a place to where that is not the thing. I turned off something even though I didn’t quit my business, I turned off a lot of things and the instant.

Happiness that I got out of turning some of those things off was absolutely amazing. Um, and so I have just like vowed to continue in that way in Q2 and then, hey, in Q3, maybe I’ll evaluate everything again. Who knows? But that’s where I was in Q1.

Sabrina: Yeah. I love though that you, I, I love that you don’t make rash decisions.

And that you allowed yourself the space to like step back and say, okay, do I, do I really want this? And like reevaluate things, but also make minor changes to make things better, more optimal, right? That you’re still tweaking. And I think that’s so important. And honestly I think that’s something that you and I both do really well all the time is constantly having that like reevaluation of things that need to change, get set down, picked up, modified, tweaked, whatever.

It keeps us out of like that stagnant. Mm-hmm. You know, which a lot of people get stuck in. They build a thing and then they just think it’s gonna run forever. And I don’t think that that’s the case. So, or that they

Colie: sit in that indecision of what to do next. You and I do not suffer from that at all. I am all about, Nope, this is what we’re gonna do next, and this is what we do going forward.

I did work with a different coach in Q1. While I won’t say that she was the best fit, I mean lover, I did get some things like she finally got me off of my, I refuse to record solo episodes. So in case you haven’t listened to Business First Creatives, you guys, I did like eight solo episodes in a row. So that was definitely money well spent.

I will say that. It looked like it was gonna be a, a good fit initially, but what she helps people do in like the planning stage was not what I needed. So by that, I mean, I feel like her method is getting people to recognize the things that need to be done on a weekly basis in order to keep your business moving.

And that is not what I need because I have all of those things figured out and I pay other people to do them. So like getting the podcast out every week. Okay. I don’t really do that. Hailey does that. Writing blog posts and emails and all that. I don’t do that. Kara or Sarah does it. I feel like what I needed was more guidance in how to transition from the one-to-one services to the one to many that I am really trying to go towards now.

While the coach was very helpful in like the initial part, I felt like I needed more support in making a decision and putting it out into the world and like moving to the next step. Whereas again, she was focusing on the, but these are the things that you need to do every day and if this is your project, this is how you break it up.

But like for me, like my project kept changing. Yeah. Like I thought of a whole new course that is about to be launched right after this episode goes live. And so everything that we had kind of put in my trackers, um, half that shit didn’t matter because I was doing a new thing and I’m working with a different coach in Q2.

I do feel like it is a much better fit for where I am going forward, so that is a positive thing about Q2.

Sabrina: Okay, so because this is an off the cuff conversation and we just let it go where it wants to go, I do wanna do a little, a little sidebar here with you about your Q1 coach and kind of your expectations going in and how, what you got out of it versus how you feel it went.

All of that. I know what you’re gonna say, but I’m gonna lead you to say it ’cause I want them. I want the listeners to hear it. What are your thoughts about having an experience, like choosing to hire someone to coach you and we’re gonna say, coach, program mastermind, fill in the blank with an educational offer and feeling like you got your investment out of it, or it was worth it.

Like how do you. Just what are your thoughts there? Because I hear a lot of times people make an investment and they feel like, oh, it wasn’t this life-changing information, therefore it was a bad investment, or I was led astray by what I thought it was gonna get, and there’s a whole lot of mess there as far as people investing.

Yeah.

Colie: So

Sabrina: I’m

Colie: wondering if we’ve gotten far enough past that investment where I thought, I mean, I know what you’re saying. Yeah, I know what you’re saying. So. Um, I haven’t said this on my podcast. I’m gonna kind of tease it here, but I’m not gonna go into the whole story. But what Sabrina said about paying for something that you thought was gonna be one thing, and it wasn’t.

I said that guys and I, it was the biggest investment that I’d ever made and it a hundred percent flopped, and I will never put myself in a position like that again. But one of the things that Sabrina and I will get at this stage in our business is that our wins from a coach do not need to be life altering.

I just need to be pushed a little bit in the right direction in order to feel like I got my ROI and I have paid $5,000 for two different programs and I felt like I got my investment because of how they pushed me to make my current service better. And I mean, in those two cases, if I combine them and say it’s 10 k, I made that money back in three weeks.

This was early, this was like 2021, I think. So. I have been in positions where I have paid a lot of money and I have really gotten my ROI in terms of how much money I made on the backend, but that’s not always the case. So my Q1 coach, again, she pushed me to kind of lay things out and make sure that I was doing the things to progress forward.

And what I will say about the wins, or the ROI, if you will, from her, is that number one, I’m doing solo episodes again. That is what helps me sell my services and my products, and I wasn’t doing that all of 2024. I did not publish a single solo episode. Part of it was my mental state. Part of it was I just didn’t feel like it.

I mean, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with that. So bare minimum working with that coach and getting over my hump again of doing one, of doing solo episodes paid for itself. The other thing that was very helpful. Working with her was on one of our one-to-one calls. We sat down and we kind of did a visual representation of all of the offers in my business and what led to what.

And while we didn’t get to fully flesh out the whole thing. Part of the conversation was leading me to, okay, no, but like you really need to focus more effort on this one part, this one funnel in your business. And so that was very helpful in making sure that I was doing a direction that was going to lead me to what I would like to do now, which is to sell more of my course.

Like that is where I am going with all of this. I want to sell my course again. I feel like my messaging has been a little watered down. Over the last two, three years since I put up the template shop, but now I’m committed once again to doing my course and so having that direction from her again, it is not that it was a money ROI, but the direction that she pushed me in, I will see a return on the investment here soon.

Sabrina: That’s, that’s the big thing is the farther along you are in your business, it’s real rare to have like a life changing, ’cause we, I don’t wanna say we know it all, but we’ve heard a lot of things. We’ve tried a lot of things. We’ve, you know, we’ve just gone down a lot of different roads and learned things the hard way.

Learn things from coaches, whatever. And so it’s really rare to hear something so new and so different that makes. That big of a difference, and I think it’s really important for you, the listener, to understand that you still need to make the investments. You still need to work with the coaches. You’re just your goal, your ROI, your end result is gonna be seemingly smaller.

You’re not gonna feel this upside down, flipping your business the night and day, black and white, but it’s going to alter, like, pivot the direction you’re going or how easy something feels, or the way you think about it or the mindset or whatever. And any little tangible step in the right direction when you’ve been in business for a really long time is worth the investment.

And so I love that because you said she maybe not wasn’t the greatest fit, but you still, she still had a pretty fantastic impact on where you’re moving forward and, and you only worked with her for a quarter and now you’ve, you’re choosing somebody that’s feels like a little bit better fit. So,

Colie: well, the funny thing about this is after I hired the first coach in Q1, the coach that I am now working with announced her offer a week later.

So if that offer had come first, I would’ve worked with her in Q1 and probably continued into Q2. And I’ve got this rule, you don’t have more than one cook in the kitchen. You don’t have more than one coach at a time. It is hard to take advice from two different people and meld them because then if it doesn’t work out, I’m not saying you blame someone, but really you can’t blame anyone ’cause you probably didn’t listen to either of them thoroughly.

I. And then in for Q2, like when I was thinking, okay, am I gonna continue with coach number one? Am I going to just sit out for a for a quarter and see what happens? That was when the second coach came around and said, okay, well now I’m doing this for a whole quarter. And I was like, oh no, I’m in the invoice.

Like. Nothing else needed. Just send me an invoice, let me pay you. Well, and her form said, you know what? What made you decide to say yes? I said no. I said yes in Q1. I was like, but you were too late. You were slow. And I had already paid somebody else.

Sabrina: So it is what it is. Yeah. I love that. Struggles that I faced in Q1.

Like I said, two retreats back to back was too much mentally. I barely recovered from one before leaving for the other it was. Too, too messy, too messy to do two, right back to back. And also for Cheyenne, my retreat coordinator, making her do two back to back like we just friends. We’re not doing that again.

So learn that lesson. Not gonna happen again. Managing my time this spring in Q1 and bleeding over into this month of Q2 has been hard. It is my daughter’s last club volleyball season club. Volleyball’s not new for me, that we’ve been in it for years and years and years. Spring is always hard because all of the travel tournaments are in March and April and it’s just like in town, out of town, in town, out of town.

It’s a lot, so it’s not new to me. I don’t know why it feels harder to me this year than it has in the past. Maybe I’m older. Maybe I have more going on in my business. Maybe I’m more emotionally a mess because it’s her last one, whatever it is. I’ve had a really hard time this spring being in and out of the house between the Palm Springs retreat, the Savannah retreat, and then we went to Indianapolis for travel.

We went to Kansas City for travel. We’ve been all over the metroplex. I feel like there was another trip in there somewhere for something, and I can’t remember what, oh, you and I went to Dallas for the Creative Educator Conference. I haven’t had more than 10 days at home in my bed since January. It’s just been, it’s been too much, and so that’s been hard.

But it’s one of those things where talking with my coach, it’s like. I can see the end of it at the time of recording. We only have this weekend and next weekend, and club is over forever and I will be a weepy mess, but also really happy to have my time back. So it’s a bittersweet thing. I’ve done a, I have done a really good job of.

Staying where my feet are and when we’re together at volleyball and traveling, I am literally not working. I’m not doing anything. I’m enjoying my daughter and the trips, which is not something I’ve always done normally, I like bring my laptop and in between games I’m like doing that or I’m going back to the hotel room and I’m squeezing in work and I have not done that this time, which has been nice, but it’s just, it’s been a lot of back and forth.

So that’s, managing my time has felt really tricky this quarter. And I also feel like I jumped into 2025 so hard and fast with those two retreats back to back that I feel like I’m still getting my bearings on what my vision is for this year because I just like jumped straight into things that were happening, right?

Like things that were on the calendar, places I had to be launches I was doing, and it’s kind of like now that route to Rise is wrapping up. And I don’t have another one this year, and I don’t have another retreat I’m doing this year, and a lot of my time for the rest of the year is looking wide open.

And I’m starting to be like, oh, okay. Now I can kind of vision cast like what are we doing for the rest of the year? Am I creating something? Am I launching something again? Am I building something for next year? Am I changing something I currently have? Am I just gonna sit back and enjoy the ride? I don’t know.

We’re gonna, I. I’m excited to have a little bit more clarity in that vision, but it’s been hard for me ’cause like I said at the top of this episode, I don’t do well with not knowing. Where my roadmap is taking me, and right now it’s all big fat question mark for the rest of the year. So that’s been a little bit hard for me.

Colie: But I like that you have some time to just, I know you don’t like it, but I like it for you because Yes. I mean, and now that you’ve gotten all of this stuff out of the way, you really do have time to just sit and think and plan and then move forward. I love that for you. I really do, because like you said, Emmy’s.

Club is gonna be done. You’re gonna be done with Roots of Rise. You are literally gonna be sitting there twiddling your thumbs and you know what you are gonna need. I’m gonna send you some Starbucks every once in a while because I know you’re gonna need something. You’re gonna be like, oh my gosh. Like I’m just sitting here today and I don’t know what to do and it’s driving me a little crazy.

Sabrina: I know. I honestly, this is something that like comes up in therapy. Like this is so deep rooted for me. My need to be busy and fill my time, and so. Last fall when I decided that I wasn’t gonna do a fall route to rise of this year, it felt exciting and like energizing. I was like, I know something’s coming.

I can’t wait. But now that I’m like facing down the barrel of this emptiness, I’m starting to panic because it goes against like literally every fiber of my being to have this much free time coming down on my calendar and. And I don’t know, it’s, it’s very uncomfortable, my friends. So all I can say is we’re working on it.

Working on it with my coach, working on it with a therapist. We’re stay tuned. I don’t know, but that’s been really hard for me to kind of grapple with. So, but I am excited. I know it’s, I know it’s gonna be good things. It’s just the unknown feels a little scary, you know? Hey, photographers, quick question.

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So if you’re ready to say goodbye to overwhelm, exhaustion, and the same dead ends you’re finding in your marketing, head over to sabrina gehart.com/marketing-quiz and take my free quiz today. I can’t wait to hear what your photographer marketing personality is. Now, back to this episode. Let’s talk really quickly about Creative Educators Conference before we talk about Q2, because it was literally the first day of Q2 was the Creative Educators Conference.

We were there and you, this was your third time, right? Mm-hmm.

Colie: My third time. Your third

Sabrina: time you’ve, you’re an og, and this was my first time, the first time that it actually worked with my calendar and. I don’t know if you got as much out of it, your third go round, but I got a ton out of it and I really loved the experience start to finish.

Laylee and I have been online friends for a long time. It was the first time we got to meet in person, so that was really fun. And we knew you and I knew so many people there, which was also fun to see our friends and, and all of that, and meet some industry people that I hadn’t met face to face before.

But being in a room where the education is geared towards people who are educators, where we actually. Learned stuff, you know, was really, really fun. So I had a really, really great time. Did you love it as much the third

Colie: time? I did love it. I didn’t get as much out of it as you did, and that’s okay. I mean, again, it’s like this, as you do things longer, your return on investment is lower.

Now I will say I got enough out of it and you guys kind of all jumps down on my back or whatever, whatever the phrase is. What did I tell you when we went, I said, I am not pre-buying a ticket. Do not let me pre-buy a ticket. And then what happened at 3:00 AM the day that she was closing it, I woke up, got on my phone and bought a ticket.

So yes, I am going next year. It is going to be my fourth year, but like that’s how much I enjoyed being in the room. And you were like an immediate, okay. No, I bought a ticket like, you’re gonna have to buy a ticket and you know, that’s fine. I bought a ticket. I did love it. I, one of the best things that I got being in the room is, you know, that I have been, and this kind of brings up that bad experience that I had in the past, but.

I need to run ads. I need to just get it over with. And there were two people that are ads people. You know, Ashley, we’re in a big break club together. I’m finally going through that ad material and getting ready to run ads. And then of course Jan Bishop was on stage talking about ads. And the thing that talking to both of them got me was.

I really do know how to run ads. I really do know how to look at the data, and sometimes it’s, you know, it’s very intimidating to think about it, but there wasn’t anything that Janice said on stage that I didn’t know, but she got me really motivated to go and do it again. So that is the thing that I walked away from creative educators for is pretty soon you are going to see me running ads and that I haven’t ran ads in, what, three years, two years?

I can’t even remember how many. But that’s like my next stepping stool, especially since. I am intending to really focus on digital products instead of one-to-one services.

Sabrina: That conference was three weeks ago. Why do you not have an ad running yet?

Colie: Oh, because my, there were other things that were related to the live events that I already had going and I literally could not pause in order to put the stuff together.

Believe me, I tried. Okay. I had a lot of like my, my to-do list for my email challenge, and then I came up with a whole new mini course that I am going to be finished recording this week. Like. It’s been a thing I couldn’t even afford to take like one or two days and set up some ads. I have to get this other stuff done because yeah, I need it to be done before I go and announce to people, Hey, I’ve got this new thing.

Come buy it. It’s gotta be mostly done before I say, come buy it.

Sabrina: Yeah. I, I loved the ad talk. I, I love ads. I’m starting to like them more and more. I think they’re so fun to play with. I know just enough to be dangerous, not, not enough to call myself a professional ad person, but enough to solve some problems and to troubleshoot and all of that.

I’ve been toying with ads for years and I just have so much fun with them. I have an ad going right now that’s going really, really well and it’s just so fun to watch new leads pour into your list. And so I got a lot from that. I, the ad conversations that I had not, you know, during the public talks, but kind of on the side with Jenna and Ashley were.

They gave me some really good ideas for things that I didn’t have kind of planned, and I was like, oh yeah, that would be a good thing to try. So I’m gonna test those things out. I’ll say kind of what you said, I know going into next year that it’s not going to be, I’m not gonna have nine pages of notes like I did this year.

You know, I’m sure there will be some repeat speakers and whatever, but. Being in those rooms and getting to meet those people and have those conversations and make connections about podcasts and hear what’s working for them, and just being with your peers. Even if I don’t, honestly, even if I don’t walk away with anything that I wanna do in my business, going for the sake of being in the room with peers and having those discussions in that community is totally worth the price of admission to me.

Colie: I mean, speaking of podcasts, I interviewed Molly McCauley, who was on stage. I interviewed her today and without really knowing it, like, you know, I like to put together a good series. That’s my thing. I ended up booking five different people from the conference, one of whom I already had a relationship with, but the other ones are like brand new.

I ended up booking five people and literally, I’m gonna call it the Creative Educator series. Like I’m not gonna try and Exactly. You should see your face, guys. Sabrina’s mouth is wide open, so. That was the theme. It wasn’t a theme of what they were talking about or what their expertise is. I mean, Molly, we talked about being neurodivergent is what we talked about today.

And Ashton is gonna come and talk about Enneagrams. And I know people are gonna be excited about that because when I did my first Enneagram episode like two years ago, everybody was like, oh my gosh, that’s amazing. But. All these people together, like the thread, if you will, is going to be the experience that we had at Creative Educators.

And so if nothing else, that is one thing that I gained from being at the conference this year, networking being in the room. And I, I wanna say, because I think I told you, but maybe not, I. Um, the thing that Laylee does that I really loved, and of course she did it at the first one, and then second one, and then clearly at the third one for this time, is she makes you eat lunch with people that you don’t know on day one.

So when you pick up your badge, your badge has a number on the back and they have assigned you to a group to make sure that you go off and meet people. Perhaps you have never met before, and that is that, and in the hot seats with, again, groups that are created for you, you are not picking your buddies.

That is something that’s really beneficial about being in the room.

Sabrina: Yeah, and I will say as a first time attendee, when she told us that that was the plan, the morning of day one, I was like, nah, nah, I, I don’t like being told what to do. I wanna sit with my friends that I’m here with. Do not make me sit with strangers.

It felt very like first day of school and I wasn’t here for it. I’m almost 45. I wanna do what I want, but, but she knows what she’s doing because. The community that she brings, the people that she attracts, there’s no jerks. And it, it does force you outta your shell and making connections that you would not have made sitting next to people you would’ve never have sat next to.

And she levels the playing field so that some of the, like bigger names are sitting with people who’ve never been before, and people who are literally starting their journey as an educator or sitting with, you know, keynote speakers. I mean, and so it’s really. Really not a bad thing. So if you hear that and you’re thinking about going to this conference, I’ll make sure to link it in the show notes.

Don’t, don’t panic. It is a good thing. It is a good thing. It is a good thing. It works out, I promise. I promise it works out. Okay, let’s jump into Q2. What are you working on in Q2? What’s coming? What’s changing? What do you have going on?

Colie: Okay, so it was two business bestie episodes ago where I announced that I was going to be shifting towards a done with you.

And immediately after it aired, one of your people reached out and said, uh, Coley, when this launches I’m in. And then six months went by and I, I really wasn’t in a head space last year when I talked about I, I just wasn’t there yet. But in March I sat down and I was like, okay, it’s time. In a weekend, I got together the entire sales page, if you will.

I got together the container. I created all of the notes where they could schedule their kickoff calls, schedule their individual calls, support ticketing system for them, not just for the course. Like I got all that set up. Then the original person joined, and then one other person that I had had a sales call with joined David had been in my world for a while, like almost a year.

Actually. It was funny, we had a sales call exactly a year after we talked for the first time, and he wanted to get a strategy call and an audit. And I was like, okay, so just so that you know, I’ve got this thing and those are both included and then here’s what else you get. And he was like, oh yeah, just send me that link.

I was like, okay. So I just kicked off one call. I have another one tomorrow. Um, and we’re gonna see how it goes, but I am already so much more excited about this. Then I have almost anything else in my business for the last few years. So I’m really excited. It’s. It’s literally exactly what I wanna do. I don’t wanna do your shit for you anymore.

I want you to ask me questions. I wanna give you clarity and I wanna tell you what to do. That is where I am going. I want to use my brain and not have to think about all of the complex parts that come with the implementation and waiting on you to give me feedback and mapping out the whole thing. I don’t wanna do it anymore.

I just want you to ask me questions. I wanna tell you where you get stuck, help you get over the hump and tell you what to do next. So. That’s my exciting thing for Q2 is that I finally launched it.

Sabrina: That is very

Colie: exciting.

Sabrina: I have a bunch of little things in Q2, I guess. Um, as of when this airs, I have a brand new, two brand new things, a brand new quiz, uh, which is a lead generator.

I saw an email today that I’m very, very excited about. I’m already getting really fun feedback. It is what is your marketing personality? And the entire premise of the quiz is when you get your results on the back end. It’s. Going to tell you what you’re naturally good at and what your holes are so you can work with your strengths and then find support for your weaknesses.

So I’m really, really excited about that. I’ve, I haven’t done a quiz since, I don’t know, 2020. And even then, it was questionable at best. This one is solid. It’s really solid. It’s really fun. So I’m really excited about that. And then along with that, I am launching a private podcast that is seven episodes.

It’s called Marketing That Moves, and it is, like I said, seven episodes. It’s about marketing. It’s different than the course. But it’s like having me coach you in your ear. So the entire premise is that it’s meant to feel like I am in a one-to-one Voxer conversation with you, kind of getting you outta your head, thinking through what you’re doing, how you could be doing it better.

Um, there’s some mindset with it. It’s just, it’s real good. I was excited about creating it, and then when I actually sat down and recorded all the episodes, I was like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be so fun. Um, so that is new, which I’m really excited to get that into the hands of, of people. The other things I’m working on in Q2, I’m gonna fine tune some launch plans for my marketing course.

It’s gonna do, we’re gonna do another public launch in June. I don’t know what I want that to look like. Uh, I don’t think I wanna do the challenge again, ’cause I’ve done that two times in a row. So I think I wanna do something different, but I’m not sure what. So stay tuned with that. And then, you know this, but we are in discussions for making some changes to the round table.

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Sabrina: And I don’t know what that looks like yet. Just like you said, I’m not making any rash decisions. I’m mulling, I’m mulling over what these changes could look like. What could happen when these changes could be, but this group is five years old at this point, which is wild. Five years old. I’m so proud of I that five years ago.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. I’m so proud of it, the fact that it’s five years old, but I don’t feel the way about it that I used to anymore. It is, please don’t hear me. Audience, and think it is a fantastic group. The women in there are fantastic. They’re supportive, the guest experts. It is still awesome. It’s not lighting my fire the way that it used to.

And that is an intuitive hit that it’s time to make a change to something just like you and I said, we don’t let things stay stagnant. There have been lots of little minor tweaks and changes to the round table over the years, but I’m feeling intuitively like. There’s a bigger change on the horizon, and I just don’t know exactly what that looks like yet, so I’m kind of mulling through that.

One of the things I’m toying with is putting it back into its OG status, which is making it an alumni only group so that it’s no longer public, like open to the public. I’m, I would never kick people out. But as far as like new enrollment, that it mm-hmm. That it goes back into just being open to graduates of other programs.

So it may go to that I, I don’t know. I’m not sure. But I’ve been mulling on that. It’s been taking up a lot of brain space. And then Q2, I don’t know, will I figure out what’s next for me? That is the question. I mean, I feel like we need

Colie: a working weekend.

Sabrina: I would love a working weekend. But I don’t think that’s going to be in the books.

I mean, yeah, I don’t think that’s in the books with our calendar, but I’ll see you in September.

Colie: Mm-hmm. I mean, that’s a good segue. So before I, I wanna say I didn’t finish what I’m doing in Q2. I said I’m doing the done with you. Other thing that I’m doing is I have not done anything live in two years. I have an email challenge that when this episode drops, it will be starting tomorrow.

So if you would like to join, it’s colley james.com/glow. Up one word. And along with my, me focusing on emails came a new mini course on emails. Like I have never really considered myself someone who would ever teach anybody how to write anything. ’cause that’s just, you know, that’s not my gift. But telling you what to include.

Oh, that is my gift. Basically telling people what to do is my gift. So that is what else I, I have planned and I’m a little nervous, but also excited at the same time because doing the live thing, I don’t mind the teaching. I don’t mind the creating the funnels and doing all that. I mean, I consider that to be fun, but it’s the waiting to see what’s gonna happen on the other end.

I’m like, um, this is bullshit. So that’s the end of that. But kicking into what we were talking about, the next thing that we wanted to talk about is how quickly you, me, and our good friend Ami, planned our next trip. So why don’t you kick it off and tell me, ’cause technically I wasn’t on the first part of that call.

I

Sabrina: know. Okay. So Ami had me on the podcast on this Can’t be that hard. That episode I don’t even think is airing until the summer. She, we recorded real early and anyways, anytime. And it’s like this with you and I too. Anytime one of us gets together on a call, which sometimes it just happens to be for a formal podcast interview, you know, there’s a fair amount of like catching up before we hit record and after the, the recording’s over.

And I had mentioned to her that like, it’s been a, it’s been too long since we’ve gotten together. Uh, she was at almost a year. Exactly right. She had been at Reset. We hadn’t been there. You know, we had been at this, she hadn’t been, anyways, it. The three of us hadn’t been in a room in a minute, and I just kind of threw it out there.

I was like, we need to get something on the books. And she’s like, let’s do it right now. And I said, okay. And we immediately got off of the recording, started the text chat, and we were throwing out dates, locations, timing. We’re like, Coley answers get outta do not disturb. Talk to us. Yeah,

Colie: but we had something.

Sabrina: I mean, but the kicker is

Colie: at the end of the day, you guys, they sent me that message at like 10 ish my time. So Mountain time, by the time four 30 my time rolled around. So what is that? Six and a half hours. We had all three booked plane tickets for our trip and then we booked an Airbnb. So. That is what you can do.

And that is why I love them, because none of us let grass grow under our feet. It’s like we get an idea and we just roll with it. And so that’s why you guys are my people.

Sabrina: I. Yeah. And it is gonna be such a fun little trip. We are going to Chicago in September and um, watch Out World. When the three of us get together, you know, it’s gonna be groundbreaking plus we’ll just have fun.

And I asked Holy this at, at Creative Educator. I was like, holy, are we like working the whole time or are we playing because I mean, we’re gonna be in Chicago. And she’s like, oh, well, I mean, I thought we were gonna work. But we could play too.

Colie: Well, I mean, I’m selling, I’m saying that to you because I feel like when I’m in your presence and you are in mine, and then when we honestly have atomy with us too, we do work and I did a quote air quote guys, for those that are not like watching a video.

We did a working weekend or I did a working, whatever you wanna call it with some of our friends in Palm Springs recently. It was really funny because they all said, wow, you work a lot. And I was thinking to myself, I feel like I’ve barely worked. I don’t even know what I’ve accomplished since I’ve been here in Palm Springs.

And I know y’all definitely accomplished less than me, but I’m like, this is not a real working weekend. Where is Sabrina? This is not the same.

Sabrina: Where is Sabrina? Not the same vibe. It did look like you guys had fun, but you guys did other stuff. There was a lot of eating out. There was a lot of, I mean, was a lot of eating.

Colie: ’cause we’re in Palm Springs. Yeah. My favorite place ever. Oh my gosh. The food was so good.

Sabrina: You guys did other stuff. There was definitely not as much sitting down doing work. So we’re gonna have to create a plan before we get together so that we know

Colie: what we’re gonna do, how much

Sabrina: working, how much playing, and all of that.

Uh, but I’m so excited about that trip, so yay for us. Okay, we’ll say we’re gonna end with this question. Has anything changed for you since the beginning of the year that has you kind of tweaking or reconsidering what’s on tap for you?

Colie: Yes. The fact that I’m now focusing on emails instead of workflows, and I mean, your listening audience wouldn’t know this, but I have really been struggling with this for a hot minute.

I mean, ever since I worked with Jordan and strategy saved me in, what was that? June of 2023, so almost two years, Sabrina. I feel like people always come to me and say, I need help with my workflows, but it doesn’t convert like I think it should, and I have finally come to the conclusion that it’s because people think they’re ready for workflows and they’re not.

I. And now that I have kind of gotten over my imposter syndrome in that I am not a copywriter, I can’t really teach you a framework for writing these amazing storytelling emails, but you know what? That’s not what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to help you get a spark. I’m telling you this because now that I am kind of shifting my focus a little bit to really hone in on client experience emails, it has actually forced me to flip most of my funnels upside down.

Because they were all workflow, workflow, workflow. And now I’m like, email. Email. Yeah. So. That is a big change for me and I’m, you know, I’m not gonna just do it and see how it goes and give up. I’m, this is a permanent, like, kind of direction that I’m going to go in. And of course, maybe in Q3 and Q4 I can evaluate how well it’s gone in terms of, you know, a path from opting into buying and, you know, feedback that I’m getting in all those kinds of things.

But giving myself permission to teach people how to write emails, even though. I do not have an English degree, I am not a copywriter. All of those things, it has just allowed me to kind of see what I can teach people and the path that I actually want them to go on in a much different way, and I think it’s making me happy.

I. I’m happy now. We’ll see what it’s like when I actually launch all this stuff. But yeah, I’m excited. Oh, it also gave me an excuse to make a whole new AI tool, which I finished this morning and sent it out to three of our friends to test. So I’m hoping that they are happy with what it produced. Why did you not send this to me?

I, ’cause I knew I was gonna talk to you and I didn’t wanna distract you.

Sabrina: I’m happy to send it to you. Um, that’s so exciting. Okay. For me, things have changed since the beginning of the year that has me tweaking my plans. So if you listen back to, you know, the Q1 chat and maybe even the Q4 chat of last year, my business coach, who I resigned with, so I’m now working with her for the second year in a row.

She. Told me we are not creating anything new this year. Last year I created so many new things, did so many brand new things from scratch, worked my tail off, getting new things into the world. She’s like, this year we have gotta let the dust settle. We’ve gotta optimize funnels, get things working, all that, which I a hundred percent agree with.

However, and, but however. Now that I’m in the position that I’m in, where I have all of this free time staring at me in the face with club being almost over ize being almost over, no more retreat planning, like what am I gonna fill my time with? Of course, because now that I have all this white space coming in, and if you’ve ever heard me talk about white space, you know that that’s when we have our creative genius ideas because we can actually think and process stuff.

I have lots of ideas, two of which. Won’t go away.

Colie: Oh, I remember what one of ’em is. Hey, that’s my memory. See, it’s not bad. I remember we had that whole conversation. Yes. I’m excited about the one.

Sabrina: Yeah. Two of them won’t go away and I keep, they keep coming back and so it has me thinking I’m supposed to do something with these two things.

One of them is a smaller, easier thing. It could potentially be something that comes out this year. It could actually come out relatively quickly ’cause it would not be hard to do. I just need to kind of think about the timing of it. The other thing is a much larger animal that has me very excited, but also very nervous because it’s.

Bigger than anything I’ve done before, but it feels exciting. So maybe, maybe one of them comes out this year and one of them I create space to work on this year. I’m, I’m not sure, but, uh, the whole, you know, don’t launch anything new. Don’t work on anything new. I don’t know that I’m gonna stick to that.

Colie: No, I am all about planning the one that we were discussing for 2026.

I don’t think that your coach would have an objection to that because you No, she’s on board with that. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s planning. It’s,

Sabrina: she was, that

Colie: was,

Sabrina: she was putting that in my ear at the beginning of last year. Oh, see. Okay. Yeah. She’s like, this is coming. We’re just gonna keep talking about it.

So she’s, she’s on team. Get that out into the world. Awesome sauce. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and like I said, the other one is smaller. It could be like a, a fill in the gap situation. So I don’t know. And it, it kind of, the smaller one gets filled into the category of. That gaming energy with your business that I love, where it’s like, try it and see, you know?

And because it wouldn’t be hard to do, I’m almost inclined to just do it because. I don’t know why not. Maybe it’ll be great. Maybe it’ll be terrible. Who cares? You know, we’ll try and see. We’ll try and see, you know, so I’m not sure, I hate to leave y’all totally in the dark, but that’s, that’s the biggest thing that’s changed for me is am I gonna hold firm to that rule of nothing new this year?

Um, and actually, I guess I’ve already technically broken it with the private podcast. Mm-hmm. So, oh, oops. Oh, well I can’t help it.

Colie: I

Sabrina: can’t,

Colie: I mean, it didn’t take you very long to do that. That’s what you were doing. While I was enjoying my time in Palm Springs, only

Sabrina: because I have help. Like only because of, because Haley’s awesome.

Riley and Kat’s team and, and Hailey. I like getting something brand new launched, getting the quiz created was a beast. And if I would’ve had to. Be the only one doing that, that that sucker definitely wouldn’t be ready yet. Because I mean,

Colie: and that’s what I did last year during our working weekend when we with Otomy, that wasn’t even on my list.

I mean, granted it was on my list, but it wasn’t on my list for that weekend. And when Otomy was sitting there, I was like, you know what? I should create my quiz this weekend. ’cause now I can ask you any questions that I have while you’re sitting in front of me. And I did. I wrote all the emails, all of the, you know, outcomes.

All that stuff was launched by the time we left Grand Rapids, which was super awesome. But. I mean, what was that, three dedicated days? Yeah. Of like seven hours and you went hard and

Sabrina: deep and you, you asked a lot of questions ’cause there was a lot of troubleshooting on like how to make it do what you want on whatever.

Speaking of convert box, ’cause that’s who your quiz is through. Now that my quiz is launched into the world, I am going to finally install Convert Box on my website with that quiz being the very first. Okay, so how, how many episodes have we been talking about it guys? It’s probably been at least six months, so, well, hey, it took me

Colie: six months to get systems and session launch, so I mean, you, you’ve

Sabrina: got a, yeah, you get a

Colie: break.

Sabrina: I mean, hey. It’s gonna happen. Gonna do it. Um, alright my friend. This was a great chat. Hopefully everybody followed along with our tangents and our discussions, but I always love having you, so thanks for being here. Thanks for all of your thoughts and wisdom and we will see you next time. Bye y’all.

Thanks so much for listening to the Shoot at Straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode@sabrinagebhart.com slash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gebhart Photography. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review.

Until next time, my friends. Shoot it straight.