July 7, 2025 • 16 mins
Fall family photography season is almost here, and if you're already bracing for the wave of inquiries, back-to-back sessions, and late-night editing marathons — this episode is your survival guide. I’m walking you through the three biggest bottlenecks that leave photographers overwhelmed every single fall… and exactly how to fix them before you hit burnout.
This one’s short and actionable, and yes — I’m absolutely inviting you to stop being the bottleneck in your own business.
Find it quickly:
00:00 — Why this episode is your fall prep wake-up call
01:18 — Bottleneck #1: Editing will eat you alive (human vs. AI)
05:22 — Bottleneck #2: You still don’t have a 5-minute booking process
08:21 — Bottleneck #3: You’re still sending every client email yourself
10:24 — Why automation still needs personality
11:14 — What the Workflow Fast Pass is (and why I built it)
13:54 — Let this fall season feel different
👇 LINKS MENTIONED:
🔗 Workflow Fast Pass (Only 10 beta spots available): https://coliejames.com/automation
🔗 Client Experience Freebie: https://coliejames.com/workflows
🔗 More from me: https://coliejames.com
🎙 Listen to the podcast: https://coliejames.com/podcast
📸 Follow on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@coliejames
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Colie (00:27):
Hello.
Hello y'all and welcome backto Business First Creatives.
It's July, it's hot, and yes, it'smy birthday month, but today's
real gift for me to you is helpingyou not burn and crash this fall.
Okay.
I do wanna say this episode is mostlyfor family photographers, and so if
you are not a family photographer,I do still think that there's always
(00:49):
some value in listening to me tellyou to outsource your things and feel
more confident in your workflows.
But the examples that I'm giving intoday's episode are specifically for
family photographers who are aboutto get hit with like the wave of
inquiries that comes every single year.
Okay.
And that's because family photographyseason is coming and it's coming fast.
(01:12):
And if your inbox hasn't already starteddinging with inquiries, it will soon.
Once the kids are back in school,those floodgates are going to open.
I feel like after the pandemic,the inquiries are coming later and
later, but they are still coming.
If you're not prepared, you are goingto be crying in a closet hiding from
(01:34):
your family come November becauseof the decisions that you make now.
So I really want to help you avoid that.
This episode is short and sweet,and we are going to walk through
the three biggest bottlenecks thatcrush photographers every fall.
And here's the thing, these are totallyfixable now before it's too late.
(01:54):
All right, let's get into it.
Bottleneck number one, editingis going to eat you alive.
Now, I used to be one of thosephotographers who swore up and
down, no one can edit like me.
Special Snowflake syndrome, right?
But in 2016, I literallycouldn't see my screen, and so
outsourcing was no longer optional.
(02:17):
Now, I don't need you guys to goblind like I did in order to be
forced to at least try outsourcing.
I want you to try it beforeyou absolutely say no to it.
You need to start now.
Okay, so in order to get the processstarted, here's what I need you to do.
First, I need you to decide whether or notyou want to invest in a human editor or an
(02:42):
AI editor, because yes, now in 2025, youhave that option, and the AI editing tools
out there are absolutely fabulous, but.
If you want to start with ahuman editor, you've got choices.
Not only can you hire like an individualfreelance editor in order to get
things started, you can also tryout a company like the Image Salon.
(03:05):
But before you do this, I don'twant anybody waiting until
fall to start that process.
I want you to choose two to threeof your past galleries, and I want
you to send them to the editors.
In order to see what kindof editing comes back.
Now, almost all of these, like humaneditors that you will hire, will
(03:25):
want to see samples of your work.
Some of them will actually get ona call and build a profile and edit
live with you so that you can givethem real time feedback in what you
like and what you don't like about theediting process as they are doing it.
You have these options with humaneditors, but if you don't wanna go
(03:47):
the human editor route, you can do AIediting tools like imaging tools like
Imagine After Shoot, even Image Salon hashuman editors and they also have an AI
editing tool, are all solid options, but.
The prep process for AIediting is very different.
You are not gonna send them just twoor three of your previous sessions.
(04:11):
You're going to send them hundreds,if not thousands of your edited
files so that the AI tools can trainthemselves on your editing process
and create a profile unique to you.
Now, that's not the only waythat you can do AI editing.
You can actually use like pre-doneprofiles at most of these companies
(04:32):
to where it will take like profilesthat they've already created based
on a specific photographer's workor just something in general,
like colorful and punchy, andyou can apply those to your work.
I personally feel like everything elsethat I've talked about related to ai,
the more context you give it relatedto your sessions and your editing,
(04:54):
the better output you're going to get.
But here's the kicker.
No matter which route you choose.
Now here in July, in the middle ofsummer is when you should start that
process because no one should be tryingto get editing, you know, inside of
your business in October when you'realready flooded with completed sessions.
(05:17):
Okay, let's talk about bottleneck numbertwo, and that is your booking process.
Every single service provider, whetheryou're a photographer, a website
designer, a copywriter, whatever it is,needs a five minute booking process.
That starts with a templatedproposal where you are asking the
client to choose the services orjust confirm them, and that can be
(05:40):
customized in less than five minutes.
Like if you don't wanna offer someoneeverything that you typically do, you can
quickly customize it before you send it.
But the first part is the services.
The second part is that contract,and the third part is the invoice.
Now, two ways that people push back onme when I tell them that they need this.
(06:02):
No, everything in my business is custom.
No, it's not.
I have honestly never met a businessowner where everything was customized.
I've been doing this for five years.
Guys, there are parts of your processthat are in fact the same from client
to client or from offer to offer,because I'm not telling you that you
(06:24):
only need one proposal template foryour entire business if you have three.
Four, five very different offers.
You can create a proposal template forevery single one of those offers and
which one you're sending to a client.
You can take five minutes tocustomize it before you send it.
That is totally possible.
And that contract, y'all, you have noidea how many people tell me no, my
(06:49):
contract has to be customized every time.
And so I push back and I say,okay, what needs to be customized?
And they tell me and I'm like, well, no,they could get that off the proposal.
Your CRMs will take the offers andthe like, you know what's included and
the price and all of those details.
Your CRMs will take that from the servicesselection on your proposal, your quote,
(07:11):
your smart file, and it will transferit to the contract with just a field,
a custom field that you can tell it.
Then there's the invoice.
I know people are like,well, no, you know, I have to
customize the payment plan.
I encourage you to find a way to make itmore standardized for everyone, because
every time you say something has to becustomized, I hear booking friction.
(07:35):
I hear you.
Stopping the process and puttingyourself in there as the bottleneck
in order to get these leads.
Booked has actual clients, okay?
Every CRM that you could possiblybe getting has a way to connect the
services, the contract, and the invoice.
(07:56):
Everybody needs a fiveminute booking process, okay?
So.
I want everyone.
If this is something that's been onyour to-do list, absolutely do it
now and honestly do that immediatelyso that the next inquiry that you
get for a fall session can get yournew five minute booking process.
(08:16):
Make it easy, make it fast,and make it mostly standard.
Okay, that's the first two bottlenecks.
This last one is where people startto feel a certain kind of way, and
it's sneaky because you feel likemanually replying to every single one
of your clients makes it personal.
And it doesn't.
It just makes you a slave to your phoneor your computer every hour, every
(08:42):
minute, every day that you own a business.
You feel like it's luxury, but reallyit's killing your fault conversion rate.
Because every minute that it takesyou to watch your inbox and see that
you got an inquiry, and then go sitdown and write them a completely from
scratch, personalized email, is aminute that if they've inquired with
(09:06):
more people than just you, they'reprobably gonna go with the people who
gave them the information fastest.
Now, does that mean that I'msaying you automatically send
them everything related to bookingyour services when they inquire?
Absolutely not.
But what you don't want there tobe is like this huge gap between
when they inquire with you andwhen they actually hear from you.
(09:28):
Now your inquiry, your firstresponse builds trust with the lead.
I want it to be an automatedbranded reply within 30 seconds.
Okay?
People expect it now.
Automation is somethingthat is here to stay.
What should that email, whatshould that response say?
It should always give them the next step.
(09:50):
It should totally sound like you,and it should give them something
to look at, chomp at, think aboutbefore you personally respond to them.
Now, that also gives you alittle bit of wiggle room.
You should no longer feel likeyou have to immediately watch
your phone or your computer.
Every waking minute so that you are notlosing inquiries or dropping the ball.
(10:14):
This is really gonna give you a senseof ease and release some of the stress
that you are feeling about missingthings inside of your client experience.
And this is why I builtthe workflow FastPass now.
If you want to learn about whatshould be in your client experience,
I have an amazing freebie thatwill walk you through that.
(10:36):
If you go to Colie james.com/workflow.
What I hear a lot of people telling me isthat they don't have time to build their
own workflows, or if they take the timeto build the workflows, they're never
confident enough to actually use them.
They're afraid that theydid something wrong.
They're afraid that the wrong emailis gonna go out or that you know it's
(10:59):
not gonna work as expected, or thatit's gonna depend on a form going out.
And then they realize threeweeks later it was never sent.
Okay.
There are still too many of youthat are too scared to use the tools
that you are actually paying for.
So if you're nodding along and thinking,yes, Colie, that's totally my life.
Okay?
I want you to listen to this.
(11:19):
The workflow, FastPass is minute new,AI powered, human reviewed offer.
I wanna explain.
So when you purchase yourvery own workflow, fast pass.
This is what's going to happen.
You're gonna fill out a quick intake form.
It is not like this lengthything where you have to tell
me all about your business.
It's really gonna ask you somestraightforward questions that
(11:42):
are gonna help me design theperfect workflow for your business.
Do you wanna have a consultation call?
Yes or no?
Do you wanna follow up withclients if you make the offer?
They don't respond.
These are questions that all ofus are going to be able to answer
without a lot of thought and stress.
And so once you hit submit on that form,it is going to be run through one of my
(12:06):
AI assistants and they are trained onmy workflow and automation strategies.
I have one for HoneyBookand one for Dubsado.
It is going to build yourentire workflow for me.
I'm talking about your inquiryworkflow, your booking workflow, your
onboarding workflow, your deliveryworkflow, and your offboarding workflow.
All five of those are gonna be builtby my AI assistant, and then I am
(12:30):
personally going to review every singlestep the triggers, the emails that it's
suggesting, and make sure that thereare no red flags before you get it.
The real kicker, I am going to bedelivering these within 72 hours
of you submitting your intake form.
So at the end of three days, youcould have a completely mapped out
(12:54):
automation blueprint in your handswhere you are going to be able to go
into your CRM and just push buttonsto build your entire workflow.
Now, even though I know it'sgoing to work, I am also going
to show you step by step.
In a training video, how totest the entire system so that
you feel most confident usingit inside of your business.
(13:17):
But no more figuring it out from scratch.
No more binging YouTube ortrying to DIY it yourself.
Just a custom workflow built foryour business, reviewed by me.
Your favorite clientexperience, system strategist.
Okay, and so today thisoffer is available.
There are only 10 betaspots available at 1 97.
(13:39):
If you would like one, pleasego to Colie james.com/automation
and grab one today.
But coming back around to thewhole point of this podcast
episode this year can be different.
What I really want from you is to comeout on the other side of Fall family
(14:00):
photography session and not feel the sameway that you may have felt last year.
I want everyone to be like,wow, that was a great season.
I can't wait for next year.
Instead of, oh my God, I don'tknow if I can ever do that again.
Guys, fix the bottlenecks now.
Outsource your editing.
(14:20):
Get that five minute booking process setup, and finally create some workflows that
are gonna help automate and streamlineyour client experience going forward.
I don't want anybody to gointo fall season with a lot of
caffeine and crossed fingers.
This year you can go into yourfall booking season more confident,
(14:41):
and on the other end realize thatthere is a version of you and your
business where you are not stressedand burnt out at the end of the year.
Alright, that's it for this episode.
See you next time.
Hello.
Hello y'all and welcome backto Business First Creatives.
It's July, it's hot, and yes, it'smy birthday month, but today's
real gift for me to you is helpingyou not burn and crash this fall.
Okay.
I do wanna say this episode is mostlyfor family photographers, and so if
you are not a family photographer,I do still think that there's always
(00:49):
some value in listening to me tellyou to outsource your things and feel
more confident in your workflows.
But the examples that I'm giving intoday's episode are specifically for
family photographers who are aboutto get hit with like the wave of
inquiries that comes every single year.
Okay.
And that's because family photographyseason is coming and it's coming fast.
(01:12):
And if your inbox hasn't already starteddinging with inquiries, it will soon.
Once the kids are back in school,those floodgates are going to open.
I feel like after the pandemic,the inquiries are coming later and
later, but they are still coming.
If you're not prepared, you are goingto be crying in a closet hiding from
(01:34):
your family come November becauseof the decisions that you make now.
So I really want to help you avoid that.
This episode is short and sweet,and we are going to walk through
the three biggest bottlenecks thatcrush photographers every fall.
And here's the thing, these are totallyfixable now before it's too late.
(01:54):
All right, let's get into it.
Bottleneck number one, editingis going to eat you alive.
Now, I used to be one of thosephotographers who swore up and
down, no one can edit like me.
Special Snowflake syndrome, right?
But in 2016, I literallycouldn't see my screen, and so
outsourcing was no longer optional.
(02:17):
Now, I don't need you guys to goblind like I did in order to be
forced to at least try outsourcing.
I want you to try it beforeyou absolutely say no to it.
You need to start now.
Okay, so in order to get the processstarted, here's what I need you to do.
First, I need you to decide whether or notyou want to invest in a human editor or an
(02:42):
AI editor, because yes, now in 2025, youhave that option, and the AI editing tools
out there are absolutely fabulous, but.
If you want to start with ahuman editor, you've got choices.
Not only can you hire like an individualfreelance editor in order to get
things started, you can also tryout a company like the Image Salon.
(03:05):
But before you do this, I don'twant anybody waiting until
fall to start that process.
I want you to choose two to threeof your past galleries, and I want
you to send them to the editors.
In order to see what kindof editing comes back.
Now, almost all of these, like humaneditors that you will hire, will
(03:25):
want to see samples of your work.
Some of them will actually get ona call and build a profile and edit
live with you so that you can givethem real time feedback in what you
like and what you don't like about theediting process as they are doing it.
You have these options with humaneditors, but if you don't wanna go
(03:47):
the human editor route, you can do AIediting tools like imaging tools like
Imagine After Shoot, even Image Salon hashuman editors and they also have an AI
editing tool, are all solid options, but.
The prep process for AIediting is very different.
You are not gonna send them just twoor three of your previous sessions.
(04:11):
You're going to send them hundreds,if not thousands of your edited
files so that the AI tools can trainthemselves on your editing process
and create a profile unique to you.
Now, that's not the only waythat you can do AI editing.
You can actually use like pre-doneprofiles at most of these companies
(04:32):
to where it will take like profilesthat they've already created based
on a specific photographer's workor just something in general,
like colorful and punchy, andyou can apply those to your work.
I personally feel like everything elsethat I've talked about related to ai,
the more context you give it relatedto your sessions and your editing,
(04:54):
the better output you're going to get.
But here's the kicker.
No matter which route you choose.
Now here in July, in the middle ofsummer is when you should start that
process because no one should be tryingto get editing, you know, inside of
your business in October when you'realready flooded with completed sessions.
(05:17):
Okay, let's talk about bottleneck numbertwo, and that is your booking process.
Every single service provider, whetheryou're a photographer, a website
designer, a copywriter, whatever it is,needs a five minute booking process.
That starts with a templatedproposal where you are asking the
client to choose the services orjust confirm them, and that can be
(05:40):
customized in less than five minutes.
Like if you don't wanna offer someoneeverything that you typically do, you can
quickly customize it before you send it.
But the first part is the services.
The second part is that contract,and the third part is the invoice.
Now, two ways that people push back onme when I tell them that they need this.
(06:02):
No, everything in my business is custom.
No, it's not.
I have honestly never met a businessowner where everything was customized.
I've been doing this for five years.
Guys, there are parts of your processthat are in fact the same from client
to client or from offer to offer,because I'm not telling you that you
(06:24):
only need one proposal template foryour entire business if you have three.
Four, five very different offers.
You can create a proposal template forevery single one of those offers and
which one you're sending to a client.
You can take five minutes tocustomize it before you send it.
That is totally possible.
And that contract, y'all, you have noidea how many people tell me no, my
(06:49):
contract has to be customized every time.
And so I push back and I say,okay, what needs to be customized?
And they tell me and I'm like, well, no,they could get that off the proposal.
Your CRMs will take the offers andthe like, you know what's included and
the price and all of those details.
Your CRMs will take that from the servicesselection on your proposal, your quote,
(07:11):
your smart file, and it will transferit to the contract with just a field,
a custom field that you can tell it.
Then there's the invoice.
I know people are like,well, no, you know, I have to
customize the payment plan.
I encourage you to find a way to make itmore standardized for everyone, because
every time you say something has to becustomized, I hear booking friction.
(07:35):
I hear you.
Stopping the process and puttingyourself in there as the bottleneck
in order to get these leads.
Booked has actual clients, okay?
Every CRM that you could possiblybe getting has a way to connect the
services, the contract, and the invoice.
(07:56):
Everybody needs a fiveminute booking process, okay?
So.
I want everyone.
If this is something that's been onyour to-do list, absolutely do it
now and honestly do that immediatelyso that the next inquiry that you
get for a fall session can get yournew five minute booking process.
(08:16):
Make it easy, make it fast,and make it mostly standard.
Okay, that's the first two bottlenecks.
This last one is where people startto feel a certain kind of way, and
it's sneaky because you feel likemanually replying to every single one
of your clients makes it personal.
And it doesn't.
It just makes you a slave to your phoneor your computer every hour, every
(08:42):
minute, every day that you own a business.
You feel like it's luxury, but reallyit's killing your fault conversion rate.
Because every minute that it takesyou to watch your inbox and see that
you got an inquiry, and then go sitdown and write them a completely from
scratch, personalized email, is aminute that if they've inquired with
(09:06):
more people than just you, they'reprobably gonna go with the people who
gave them the information fastest.
Now, does that mean that I'msaying you automatically send
them everything related to bookingyour services when they inquire?
Absolutely not.
But what you don't want there tobe is like this huge gap between
when they inquire with you andwhen they actually hear from you.
(09:28):
Now your inquiry, your firstresponse builds trust with the lead.
I want it to be an automatedbranded reply within 30 seconds.
Okay?
People expect it now.
Automation is somethingthat is here to stay.
What should that email, whatshould that response say?
It should always give them the next step.
(09:50):
It should totally sound like you,and it should give them something
to look at, chomp at, think aboutbefore you personally respond to them.
Now, that also gives you alittle bit of wiggle room.
You should no longer feel likeyou have to immediately watch
your phone or your computer.
Every waking minute so that you are notlosing inquiries or dropping the ball.
(10:14):
This is really gonna give you a senseof ease and release some of the stress
that you are feeling about missingthings inside of your client experience.
And this is why I builtthe workflow FastPass now.
If you want to learn about whatshould be in your client experience,
I have an amazing freebie thatwill walk you through that.
(10:36):
If you go to Colie james.com/workflow.
What I hear a lot of people telling me isthat they don't have time to build their
own workflows, or if they take the timeto build the workflows, they're never
confident enough to actually use them.
They're afraid that theydid something wrong.
They're afraid that the wrong emailis gonna go out or that you know it's
(10:59):
not gonna work as expected, or thatit's gonna depend on a form going out.
And then they realize threeweeks later it was never sent.
Okay.
There are still too many of youthat are too scared to use the tools
that you are actually paying for.
So if you're nodding along and thinking,yes, Colie, that's totally my life.
Okay?
I want you to listen to this.
(11:19):
The workflow, FastPass is minute new,AI powered, human reviewed offer.
I wanna explain.
So when you purchase yourvery own workflow, fast pass.
This is what's going to happen.
You're gonna fill out a quick intake form.
It is not like this lengthything where you have to tell
me all about your business.
It's really gonna ask you somestraightforward questions that
(11:42):
are gonna help me design theperfect workflow for your business.
Do you wanna have a consultation call?
Yes or no?
Do you wanna follow up withclients if you make the offer?
They don't respond.
These are questions that all ofus are going to be able to answer
without a lot of thought and stress.
And so once you hit submit on that form,it is going to be run through one of my
(12:06):
AI assistants and they are trained onmy workflow and automation strategies.
I have one for HoneyBookand one for Dubsado.
It is going to build yourentire workflow for me.
I'm talking about your inquiryworkflow, your booking workflow, your
onboarding workflow, your deliveryworkflow, and your offboarding workflow.
All five of those are gonna be builtby my AI assistant, and then I am
(12:30):
personally going to review every singlestep the triggers, the emails that it's
suggesting, and make sure that thereare no red flags before you get it.
The real kicker, I am going to bedelivering these within 72 hours
of you submitting your intake form.
So at the end of three days, youcould have a completely mapped out
(12:54):
automation blueprint in your handswhere you are going to be able to go
into your CRM and just push buttonsto build your entire workflow.
Now, even though I know it'sgoing to work, I am also going
to show you step by step.
In a training video, how totest the entire system so that
you feel most confident usingit inside of your business.
(13:17):
But no more figuring it out from scratch.
No more binging YouTube ortrying to DIY it yourself.
Just a custom workflow built foryour business, reviewed by me.
Your favorite clientexperience, system strategist.
Okay, and so today thisoffer is available.
There are only 10 betaspots available at 1 97.
(13:39):
If you would like one, pleasego to Colie james.com/automation
and grab one today.
But coming back around to thewhole point of this podcast
episode this year can be different.
What I really want from you is to comeout on the other side of Fall family
(14:00):
photography session and not feel the sameway that you may have felt last year.
I want everyone to be like,wow, that was a great season.
I can't wait for next year.
Instead of, oh my God, I don'tknow if I can ever do that again.
Guys, fix the bottlenecks now.
Outsource your editing.
(14:20):
Get that five minute booking process setup, and finally create some workflows that
are gonna help automate and streamlineyour client experience going forward.
I don't want anybody to gointo fall season with a lot of
caffeine and crossed fingers.
This year you can go into yourfall booking season more confident,
(14:41):
and on the other end realize thatthere is a version of you and your
business where you are not stressedand burnt out at the end of the year.
Alright, that's it for this episode.
See you next time.
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