Business-First Creatives: Client Experience & Systems for Service Providers

What if the business that worked for you a few years ago isn’t the business that fits your life anymore? In this episode, I’m sitting down with my longtime client Nicole Hodgson to talk about what it actually looks like to evolve your business intentionally. Nicole has transitioned from therapist to family photographer to brand photographer—and through every iteration, she’s paid attention to what works for her brain, her family, and the business she wants to build.

We get into why Nicole moved from Dubsado to HoneyBook, why getting your systems in place before your business gets busy matters, and what changed when she transitioned from family photography to branding and commercial work. But this conversation became about so much more than systems.

Nicole and I talk about the connection between your systems, visual brand, positioning, and the way clients perceive your professionalism. We also dig into visibility, pricing, mindset, and why likes and engagement aren't necessarily the metrics that tell you whether your marketing is working. Nicole also shares how her previous career as a therapist influenced Content Therapy, her program designed to help women understand what’s really getting in the way of showing up as the face of their businesses.

Find It Quickly

00:23 - Meeting Clients IRL

03:46 - Switching to HoneyBook

06:24 - DIY to Done With You

09:05 - Family to Brand Pivot

15:11 - Marketing and Positioning Shift

18:49 - Repeat Clients and Systems

25:09 - Brand Photos Meet Systems

27:50 - DIY Stage vs Investing

29:15 - Systems For Future You

30:56 - Build Before You're Busy

32:09 - Marketing That Actually Converts

33:08 - Professionalism Builds Trust

35:14 - Long Game Over Likes

39:54 - Content Therapy Launch Lessons

43:44 - Origin Story Superpower

46:54 - Mindset And Price Raises

Mentioned in this Episode

Even Part-Time Business Owners Need Systems for Efficiency with Jess Hoffman

Rebrand: maddiepeschong.com/rebrand

Your Origin Story Is Your Marketing Superpower: Here’s How to Tell It with Megan Yelaney

Connect with the Guest

Website: nicolehodgsonphotography.com

Instagram: instagram.com/nicolehodgson.photography

Content Therapy: nicolehodgson.myflodesk.com/contenttherapy

What happens when you take a little time off from your business and accidentally come back with an entirely new business model? Apparently, if you're me, you build an app, create your own CRM, and completely rethink how you serve your clients. It's time for another quarterly Biz Bestie Chat with Sabrina Gebhardt, and let's just say we had two VERY different experiences in Q3.

While I spent my summer experimenting with AI, vibe coding, and building custom tools for my clients, Sabrina was navigating a major life transition as she sent her daughter off to college. That's exactly why I love these conversations. We're both running successful businesses, but what success looks like in any given season can be wildly different.

In this episode, we're catching up on everything that happened in Q3 and sharing what we're changing, testing, and prioritizing as we head into Q4. I'm sharing why I've decided to make The Experience Edit the starting point for working with me, how my approach to building client systems has completely shifted, and why I'm learning that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is NOT immediately jump into implementation.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Systems in Session: coliejames.com/systems-in-session

The Experience Edit: coliejames.com/the-experience-edit

Root to Rise: sabrinagebhardt.com/mastermind-waitlist

First Class Lounge: sabrinagebhardt.com/membership

Summer Camp: sabrina-gebhardt.myflodesk.com/summercamp

Our Quarterly Business Bestie Chats:

Q3 2026: coliejames.com/business-bestie-chat-q3-2026-with-sabrina-gebhardt

Q2 2026: coliejames.com/business-bestie-chat-q2-2026-with-sabrina-gebhardt

Q1 2026: coliejames.com/business-bestie-chat-q1-2026-with-sabrina-gebhardt

Q4 2025: coliejames.com/business-bestie-chat-q4-2025-with-sabrina-gebhardt

Q3 2025: sabrinagebhardt.com/podcast/q3-business-besties-chat-with-colie-james

Q2 2025: sabrinagebhardt.com/podcast/q2-2025-business-bestie-chat-with-colie-james

Q1 2025: sabrinagebhardt.com/podcast/128-q1-2025-business-bestie-chat

Q4 2024: sabrinagebhardt.com/podcast/q4-business-bestie-chat-with-colie-james

Q3 2024: sabrinagebhardt.com/podcast/q3-business-besties-chat-with-colie-james

Q2 2024: sabrinagebhardt.com/podcast/88-q2-business-besties-chat-with-colie-james

Q1 2024: sabrinagebhardt.com/podcast/75-quarterly-business-chat-with-colie-james

Connect with Sabrina

Website: sabrinagebhardt.com

Instagram: instagram.com/sabrinagebhardtphotography

Podcast: sabrinagebhardt.com/podcast

Y’all, the biggest revenue mistake in your business probably isn’t your pricing or your marketing. It’s what happens after the project ends. You deliver something beautiful, send the final email, and then... ghost. You feel shy about asking for a review, guilty about asking for a referral, and you assume they’ll come back when they’re ready.

Here’s the thing: they won’t always. Not because the work wasn’t great, but because life moves on and you stop being a priority. In this episode, I’m sharing what I found when I loaded all 551 of my past clients into one place and just how much of my cash collected in 2026 has come from repeat clients.

I’m also introducing my very first SaaS microtool, Untapped Potential, along with its built-in Retention Radar. It helps you nurture past client relationships one-to-one in about 30 minutes a week. It tells you when it’s time to check in and when it’s time to invite someone to rebook.

In this episode:

• Why ghosting past clients is costing you real revenue
• Why checking in with past clients counts as marketing (yes, really)
• What my own sales data revealed about repeat clients
• How Untapped Potential and the Retention Radar keep you on track without relying on willpower

Get early access: Check out Untapped Potential at coliejames.com/potential. The first 25 subscribers get an early adopter perk ✨

If you know you need to market your business but still find yourself staring blankly when someone asks what you actually did to market it this week, this episode is for you. Tayler Cusick Hollman is back on the podcast for a conversation about something that affects so many small business owners: we keep assuming we need more time, motivation, or willpower to finally become consistent with our marketing.

But what if willpower isn’t the problem? Tayler has spent more than a decade supporting small business owners with their marketing, and together we’re breaking down why collecting more marketing ideas isn’t the same thing as having a marketing strategy—and why knowing what to do means very little if you never actually do it.

We talk about creating a marketing plan based on your real goals and available time, becoming more biased toward action, and identifying the small steps that can actually move your business forward. We also get into the numbers behind your marketing, including customer acquisition cost, lifetime client value, and why your time absolutely counts as a marketing expense.

Plus, I’m sharing why documenting your marketing matters just as much as doing it. If something works but you have no idea what generated the lead or sale, it becomes pretty difficult to repeat that success.

Find It Quickly

03:39 - Willpower And Marketing

07:30 - Advice Vs Strategy

10:15 - Goals To Action Steps

15:11 - Bias For Action

17:55 - Make The List

23:36 - Start Small Track Data

26:38 - Marketing Metrics Nerd Out

32:55 - Project Manage Marketing

41:48 - Document And Measure

42:58 - Action Plan And Enji

47:10 - Mind The Gap Freebie

Mentioned in this Episode

Crafting an Intentional Marketing Plan with Tayler Cusick-Hollman [Marketing with Intention Series]

The Best Financial Strategy for a Sustainable Business is Overflow with Emilie Nutley

Mind the Gap Freebie: coliejames.com/gap

Connect with the Guest

Website: enji.co

Instagram: instagram.com/enji_co

Facebook: facebook.com/enjimarketing

What if the thing you create doesn’t have to generate leads, sell an offer, or prove its ROI? What if you’re allowed to make something simply because you freaking love it? That’s exactly what I’m talking about with my friend Julie Fried, host of The System for Everything. And unlike most of the podcast hosts I bring onto Business-First Creatives, Julie isn’t using her show as a funnel into a service or offer.

She created it because she wanted a place to talk about everything that fascinates her—from business systems and meal planning to reality TV, adult friendships, parenting, travel, and whatever random rabbit hole catches her attention next. And it turns out? That creative freedom has become one of the most fulfilling things she’s done.

Julie and I get into how she curates guests and topics, why she loves even the admin side of podcasting, what she’s changing for season two, and how she’s thinking about monetization without sacrificing what makes the show fun in the first place.

Find It Quickly

01:03 - Meet Julie Fried

01:32 - Pre Written Emails

02:23 - Why Julie Podcasts

05:33 - The System For Everything

08:35 - Choosing Guests

13:01 - Bad PR Pitches

14:16 - Admin And Workflow

17:09 - Social Media Choices

21:43 - Season Two Plans

24:24 - Ads And Monetization

24:53 - Producer Ad Read

26:39 - Curated Podcast Ads

28:00 - Choosing Ideal Sponsors

29:39 - Protecting Creative Energy

31:41 - Monetizing Mom Systems

32:32 - One and Done Talk

35:47 - Only Child Systems Ideas

37:27 - Summer Camp Logistics

41:21 - System Shutdown

42:57 - Travel and Couch Life

44:09 - Budgeting Video

Mentioned in this Episode

Laylee Emadi

Creative Educator Conference

Gaffin Creative

Captivate

Flodesk – Get 50% Off Your First Year

Systems in Session

The Experience Edit

Connect with the Guest

Website: dallasgirlfriday.com

Instagram: instagram.com/thesystemforeverything

Podcast: dallasgirlfriday.com/podcast

Profitable? Great. Sustainable? Love that. But if you hate delivering it, no system in the world is going to make you fall back in love with your business.

Last episode I asked you to do a time audit. Today I've got one more ask, and it's one you should do right now, while you're in the middle of serving clients. Because if I ask you in January how you feel about your offer, you're not going to remember. And the answer matters before we build a single system around it.

In this episode:

• Why profitable and sustainable still aren't enough
• Why the numbers can wait for slow season, but this can't
• Why I can't help you build systems you'll love around an offer you don't
• Why some of you need an offer review right now

Links mentioned:

• How to Build Your Systems Using My Order of Operations → https://coliejames.com/building-client-experience-systems/
• How Long Does One Client Actually Take You? → https://coliejames.com/time-audit
• The Experience Edit → https://coliejames.com/experience

Want to know if the offer you've built your business around can sustain you long term? Let's look at it together: coliejames.com/experience

Jocelyn of Scale Your Resonance wants every one of her Best Seller clients making five figures from email, and yes, that includes me. Bold goal? Absolutely. In this episode, we dig into her new app, Email Studio. She built it for herself first, but you don't need to be a Bestie to use it, because it's open to the public and she's on a mission to get 100 users in the first 100 days. It's how I'm making email part of an always-selling marketing plan, and it can be part of yours too.

Because here's my confession: I sometimes email my list multiple times a day, my click rates are in the toilet, and almost none of my sales come from email. Jocelyn, who helped me launch this podcast four years ago, tells me how to fix it. We talk about the missing proof in your emails, why your best emails start out loud, and why "I'll just use Claude" isn't the same thing as a tool built on real expertise.

In this episode:

• Why emails without client proof don't convert, and why the small progress wins count just as much as the big results
• How a miserable afternoon writing emails in an airport lounge turned into a voice-note-first writing process
• The moment a stack of AI skills needed to become an actual app
• How to keep AI-assisted emails sounding like you and not like a press release
• Why real users and real feedback are what separate a tool that works from a tool that just exists
• What you get from a tool built on someone's frameworks that you won't get from plain Claude or ChatGPT

Links mentioned:

• Email Studio (my affiliate link) → https://coliejames.com/jocelyn
• My episode with Kara on why everyone's an AI expert now → https://coliejames.com/everyones-an-ai-expert-ft-kara-duncan/
• My episode with Annemie Tonken on AI and IP → https://coliejames.com/beyond-diy-chatgpt-the-human-first-ai-blogging-tool-for-intentional-creatives/

For a limited time, grab Email Studio for $199 for six months (normally $299) → https://coliejames.com/jocelyn

Curious how I actually use this thing, or where I've written emails lately (volleyball bleachers included)? DM me on Threads: @coliejames

How long does it actually take you to serve one client? Not the session. The whole thing.

If you're not sure, you're not alone. When I review offers, I find the same time leak over and over. It's hiding in emails you write from scratch, proposals you rebuild for every lead, and the "quick" peeks into your CRM that you never count. This one's short, and it comes with homework. Yes, even if you're not my client.

In this episode:

• The homework I want every photographer to do before slow season hits
• Why your session time is barely part of what your price has to cover
• The time suck almost nobody writes down
• The phase that takes the least time but has the biggest impact on your revenue
• The two templates I'd build first if you're too busy to build anything

Links mentioned:

• The Experience Edit → https://coliejames.com/experience
• Order of Operations Framework → https://coliejames.com/building-client-experience-systems
• Find me on Threads → @coliejames

Do your time audit, then come tell me your number on Threads @coliejames. I really want to know.

What happens when you get tired of forcing your business into software that doesn’t quite work the way you want it to? Apparently, if you’re me, you accidentally spend your birthday sabbatical building your own app. In this episode, Kara Duncan is taking over the mic and interviewing me about how a few experiments with AI tools turned into the Systems Professor app—and eventually opened my eyes to an entirely new direction for my business.

I’m sharing how I went from custom GPTs, Airtable, Notion, and existing CRM tools to building software around the way I actually want my clients to experience Systems in Session. We’re talking about Claude Code, vibe coding, personalization, accountability, AI, client experience, and why having the ability to automate something doesn’t necessarily mean I should.

And yes, we also talk about the fact that I got so absorbed in building the app that my husband handed me coffee on his birthday and I still forgot to tell him happy birthday. 😬

Find It Quickly

01:22 - Birthday Sabbatical Chaos

05:25 - Why Build an App

07:41 - Action Taker ADHD

09:40 - Rolling It Out

14:14 - Welcome Guides Playbooks

16:11 - Better Audit Delivery

18:18 - Accountability Personalization

23:14 - Origins in Custom GPTs

25:39 - Why Build an App

27:19 - Onboarding Intake Flow

28:59 - Offer Scorecard Check

33:11 - App Enhances Coaching

37:18 - One Click Build Debate

41:43 - Tech Stack Behind It

44:57 - Custom Tools for Clients

48:49 - AI Optional Philosophy

Mentioned in this Episode:

Systems in Session: coliejames.com/systems-in-session

Experience Edit: coliejames.com/the-experience-edit

Claude Code: claude.com/product/claude-code

Claude Cowork: claude.com/product/cowork

Hello Stencil: hellostencil.com

Lovable: lovable.dev

Airbase: airbase.com

Supabase: supabase.com

Vercel: vercel.com

Cloudflare: cloudflare.com

Amazon Web Services: aws.amazon.com

Connect with the Guest

Website: thekarareport.com

Instagram: @thekarareport

For five and a half years, I've helped you map your client journey, get excited about what's possible, and then spend the rest of our time together bending that vision to fit inside Dubsado or HoneyBook. As of today, I'm done with that.

This one's short and sweet — part behind the scenes, part building in public. My business has flipped upside down in the last year and a half, and building the Systems Professor app cracked something open that I can't un-see. So here's where I'm going next, and what it means if you want to work with me.

In this episode:

• The pivot I've been circling for five years and am finally saying out loud
• Why building my own custom tool changed how I think about your tools
• What I got wrong with workflows, and then again with Email Like You Mean It
• Why the Experience Edit is now the front door to everything I offer
• The one step I'll never skip with a client again, no matter what software they use
• When a custom-built tool is actually the right move (and when it isn't)

Links mentioned:

• The Experience Edit → https://coliejames.com/experience
• Order of Operations episode → https://coliejames.com/building-client-experience-systems/
• Tomorrow's episode with Kara: how I built the Systems Professor app → https://coliejames.com/everyones-an-ai-expert-ft-kara-duncan/

Ready to map the client experience you actually want, before we ever talk about tools? Solo sprints are open now, and one more group sprint is coming before the end of 2026: coliejames.com/experience