The Mindset of Going to 4-figure Shoots and 5-figure weddings with Aislinn Eileen

Want to connect with Aislinn? Follow her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/aislinneileencoaching/

Summary

In this conversation, Christa and Aislinn McKenna discuss Aislinn's journey as a business coach for creatives and wedding professionals, focusing on her transition from shoot and burn photography to a full-service model. They explore the importance of mindset, sales skills, and overcoming blocks in the photography business. Aislinn shares insights on in-person sales, the significance of client experience, and how to retrain one's mindset for success. The conversation concludes with Aislinn outlining her coaching programs and how they can help photographers scale their businesses.

Takeaways

• Aislinn has been an entrepreneur for 15 years, focusing on weddings and photography.
• The shift from shoot and burn to full service can enhance client experience and business sustainability.
• Mindset and sales skills are crucial for success in the photography industry.
• In-person sales can be effective even in small towns.
• Detaching from the outcome can alleviate pressure during sales sessions.
• Awareness of limiting beliefs is the first step to overcoming them.
• Money is perceived differently by each individual; it's important to remain neutral about it.
• Finding proof of success in others can help build confidence.
• Custom proposals can lead to higher sales in the wedding industry.
• Aislinn offers various coaching programs to support photographers in their business growth.

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Transcript

Christa (00:00.859)
Welcome everyone. I have a very old friend with me here, which Aislinn, I don't know now how many years we've known each other. You feel like a very old friend because you had such a pivotal part like in my life. And Aislinn and I actually met at a conference several years ago. She's gonna share more of her story. And Aislinn is a business coach for creatives and wedding professionals now, but you have been also in the photo space for how many years?

Aislinn McKenna (00:25.587)
This will be my 15th year of being an entrepreneur and being in like weddings and photography.

Christa (00:31.677)
Amazing. And I know now you focus your time like on that coaching, but I invited Aislinn here just for you have just so much to share. And Aislinn is she's not gonna say this, but I will say it is one of the reasons that I shifted to full service because I met you and you were talking and sharing about what you were doing. And I'm a very competitive person or I was like, holy cow, like what is going on over there? What sorcery is she practicing? So Aislinn, tell us a little bit about your story into your full service journey.

Aislinn McKenna (01:01.568)
Yeah, well, first and foremost, thank you for having me on the podcast. I really appreciate it. It's so fun to catch up. And like Christa said, we have known each other for years and years and years. I think the first time we ever met was 2017. So I think we're going on 10 years at this point, which is incredible. back in, gosh, when did I actually start all of this? I started, I know, I was like, I think my first wedding was in 2010.

Christa (01:09.659)
Yes.

Okay.

Aislinn McKenna (01:25.048)
So I have been through the industry changes over the years. I've seen what it's like to do digital, to do film, to do full service, to do shoot and burn. I have watched it all. And what I have noticed is that the people who focus on sustainability and they focus on business and not necessarily photography, and they focus on client experience, those are the ones who have the long-term businesses and they are the ones who are truly feeling fulfilled by what they're doing.

So as far as how I got into full service, so I did full service portraits, I did it with my weddings, my engagement sessions. I started doing that, I believe it was in 2018. And I did it from 2018 all the way through the end of my photography career, which I retired in 2022. But back in 2018, 2019, I was shooting a lot of weddings. I was living in the South. And if you have ever shot weddings in the South in the summer, you know that the heat is nothing to be messed with.

Christa (02:22.348)
yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (02:23.214)
And back then I was doing a lot of weddings where like they didn't have air conditioning at some of these venues. And I was getting to a point where I was just like, this is physically detrimental to my health. Like I cannot do this. I literally remember calling Christa and one of our other friends and being like, hey, I'm having headaches like every day. Is that normal? And I remember talking about it with them and they're like, yeah, probably not normal. And so at that point I was like,

Christa (02:33.852)
Mm. Yep.

Aislinn McKenna (02:48.118)
I think I want to make a shift as to what I'm doing because at the time I was doing shoot and burn. was like, take the photos, you get the digitals. And I realized, I don't remember exactly who introduced me to this. I believe it was at a marriage conference that I went to with other like wedding professionals where somebody was talking about full service, like portraits. And I was like, what is this? What, like, what is this thing that they're talking about? And I got into it and I was like, this is incredible. And it gives you so much time back and you can

Christa (02:51.452)
you

Christa (03:07.87)
Yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (03:17.462)
makes so much more doing full service.

Christa (03:20.463)
That's amazing. And when I met you, you had begun your full service journey, but we're building it up. And I remember hearing, and you stick out, I remember one time Edward was explaining to someone what I was doing. And they were like, what? Cause it was just something different. Not many people in my area were doing. And Edward was like, she has friends doing one to $6,000 from single portrait sessions. Like when you, like you said at the beginning, take that element of service and client experience and that sustainability and bring it in.

So Aislinn, you said you started your business back in, know, 20, gosh, would you say 2010? Maybe like really early on. So you had been in the industry doing shoot and burn for several years before making that pivot. So like, what was it that finally like pushed you where you're like, I gotta change something?

Aislinn McKenna (04:06.094)
I think there was just this moment where I realized that my body could not handle doing as many weddings as my mind wanted me to do. And I was like, okay, well, $300 portrait sessions ain't gonna cut it to pay the bills. It's just not because I'd have to take on a hundred a year, however much I would have to take on. And so that was when I started to really look at other options for myself. And I didn't, it's so crazy because now like in-person sales is kind of like.

Christa (04:13.871)
Yeah.

Christa (04:19.131)
Right.

Aislinn McKenna (04:32.799)
something people actually know about. But back then it was almost like this like dirty word, like it was very like taboo to do it. And I look back and I'm just like, wow, like who was making this like taboo? And then I'm like, it's all the people who were unwilling to learn the skill set and try it. Yeah.

Christa (04:34.5)
Great.

Yes! Yes!

Christa (04:48.539)
Right. Yeah. Well, and it's funny because then obviously you connected me with like some really great resources as well for like me to learn it. And now I see so many more resources. But like when we were starting it, you're right, it was kind of it not kind of it wasn't the norm. Like at all these conferences, no one would even talk about it. And like it when I discovered it, it was having so much success. It's one of the reasons I started teaching it. I'm excited for you to dive into as well, like your passion behind sales and mindset.

That's one of the reasons I was so passionate about teaching is because like I didn't know about it for so long. Like.

Aislinn McKenna (05:22.446)
Yeah, and people think it's just for portraits. They think that like, oh, like if I do this, I have to have a whole studio. I have to have all this set up. I have to meet people for hours and I have to be slimy and sell to them. And it's like, there's a huge spectrum of how in-person sales can work for you. And like I had family sessions that were $3,000. I had engagement sessions that were $4,000. I had $17,000 wedding sessions. I had $1,000 headshot sessions that were only 10 minutes of shooting.

Christa (05:28.986)
Hmm.

Aislinn McKenna (05:52.332)
I'm telling you right now, like it's the best kept secret in the industry if you actually want to have a sustainable business.

Christa (05:58.904)
Yes, and you've also, Aislinn, moved your business around. So for the people that are like, it only works in these prime cities and all this stuff, it's like, no, like you've talked to us about your journey. You mentioned you brought weddings up a few times and that you kind of really implemented it strongly into your weddings. Like talk to us about that a little bit.

Aislinn McKenna (06:17.922)
Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in Florida. I've moved my business five or six times across states and across cities. And I, when I was doing in-person sales, I lived in a medium to small size town in the South. And you would think that that would not be a place that you could do in-person sales, but it actually was something that my clients were craving. So.

Christa (06:24.098)
Wow.

Aislinn McKenna (06:39.576)
For me, I wanted to figure out how to be able to do it for portraits, but also how to do it for weddings. So I kind of created a little bit of hybrid of how I gave my clients their digitals, but also prioritized portraits. we also prioritize, I mean portraits, I mean products. We prioritize products, we prioritize the actual service itself. Yeah.

Christa (06:54.355)
Yep.

Christa (07:01.035)
I love that. Okay, so you started in Florida. I met you when you had just moved to Alabama. And then you made a big move to Colorado. So, Aislinn, like walk us through some of like, maybe the blocks that you had to work through or that you see a lot of photographers get stuck out that because obviously you've seen a lot also in all of those industries. No specific cities industry is the same. So that's really cool that you've like built up in these different places. And I know also that you have

worked really hard on building like community with photographers. So like, what do you think blocks photographers from making those steps when like sales like that are so possible?

Aislinn McKenna (07:39.222)
Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that block people. think sales skills is one of those things that has some weird taboos around it, like in the creative industry, because people really like to identify as artists and not business owners. And if you own a business, you have to have sales skills. If you're an artist, you get to kind of shuck off the responsibilities and just say, I'm an artist. I don't, I don't have to learn that.

Christa (07:43.085)
Cool.

Yeah.

Christa (07:59.917)
Yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (08:02.446)
What I'm doing is working and it's like, it actually working or are you just doing what all your friends are doing because they don't have the sales skills either. Um, so I'd say sales skills is one of the biggest, um, blocks. would say like one of the other blocks is fear of judgment and jealousy. And that right there is one of those things. I literally was just talking to one of my clients who she's graduating from my signature program, SAP. She's graduating. She's been in there a year and she was telling me how she still sees people show up in her feed that she loves their work.

Christa (08:02.486)
Right.

Christa (08:15.616)
Yep.

Aislinn McKenna (08:32.418)
but she no longer looks at that picture and says, I love this and I hate what I'm doing. She looks at what they're doing and she's like, I love this and that's available for me too. And that is a huge mindset thing. If you can start to get really neutral about seeing what other people are doing and see it as something possible for yourself and as available to you and not as a detriment or a way to shame or judge yourself, there is something so incredibly powerful about that.

Christa (08:39.135)
Interesting.

Christa (08:43.906)
Yes!

Aislinn McKenna (09:00.14)
Most people in the industry just don't even ever get to touch.

Christa (09:04.46)
Yeah, and I think that's one of the reasons why getting to pick up on in-person sales came kind of fluidly for me is because I did have that community. We had obviously you and another friend, and Aislinn, the bigger I get, obviously the more trolls that come out of the woodwork where people actually get very angry with me when I'm sharing what my students are doing because they just don't believe there's a way to do that. And I'm like, no, come aboard with us, right? And they're obviously not there. Mindset-wise, they've decided that they're gonna stay stuck and stay small.

Aislinn McKenna (09:19.447)
Woof.

Christa (09:33.9)
And I think that's so hard to see about our industry. And obviously I know you and I have done a lot of the same education and you're almost trained just to like get on the shoot and burn cycle of these $300 sessions. And that's the only way to scale. And like, I remember like the epiphany of like, my gosh, I don't have to be an industry leader or have tens of thousands of followers. Like you can do these big sales with the work you have now. Like all of us in that little cohort we made had different styles. We were all in different.

areas, were all in different demographics, we were all in different median incomes in our cities and like took it and ran with it, you know?

Aislinn McKenna (10:12.064)
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I, if you guys are listening to this podcast episode and you're like, is this for me?

I want you to recognize and realize that there are people doing in-person sales in just about every city in the US and like also like in other countries as well. It's not something that it's like, I have to live in the big city that's close by to me. Like both Christa and I lived in kind of small to medium sized like town cities. Like, and it's not like I had to travel in order to get the clients that were going to want this kind of experience. lived, they were 20 minutes from my house.

Christa (10:23.179)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christa (10:34.806)
Yeah!

Christa (10:43.596)
Yes, yeah, and for you also like having that experience of moving around and like redoing it. It wasn't just like a fluke that you came upon. And I remember Aislinn like having some of my first client meetings in my very simple three, two brick ranch home on a cut through street where we don't have curbs. Like we're talking very, very basic, but like you can still do it with what you have. And I think that's something Aislinn that you definitely helped me see as far as the mindset. Like if you...

Do hear no's and it's really hard and you hear that a lot, right? Like, and I remember you saying like, Christa, even with weddings, it doesn't have to be a no brainer investment anymore. That's actually good. You don't want to be a photographer for everybody, but you are gonna get told no more. So like, Aislinn, what, as far as you're so strong with mindset coaching, what would you say to the photographer kind of on that track of like, I'm just so afraid. All my clients are gonna tell me no, no one's gonna book me. They're all gonna be like, you're way too expensive. What are your thoughts there?

Aislinn McKenna (11:40.334)
Yeah, so I think there's a couple different things here to touch on. Number one, the more successful you get, the more you scale your business, further along you get in your career, the more you're gonna hear no. There was a year that I had 210, I don't know the exact number, but it was over 200 inquiries in a year.

and I was only taking on about 10 weddings or less that year, that is 190 people who said no to me. And that's just the people I tracked. That's not even talking about the people who I talked about in person. Those are just the people who came through my contact form. You have to get okay with the fact that people are gonna say no, it means literally nothing about you unless you make it mean something about you. And that's up to you. You get to decide if you're gonna make it mean something about you. So think that's kind of the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is,

Christa (12:07.051)
Wow.

Aislinn McKenna (12:31.07)
Money is neutral. Value is up to the person who is perceiving it. So like, I could sit here and I could say, okay, this investment is $100,000. And to me, that number is huge. It's not huge, but it's big. It's fairly large. That number, $100,000 to somebody else who like makes a million dollars a month or makes a million dollars a year, it's nothing. It means nothing.

Christa (12:57.034)
Mm-hmm.

Aislinn McKenna (12:58.07)
like it's just like a drop in the bucket for them. It's the same exact number. It means something different to me. It means something different to that person. So if you think, I'm too expensive, that's your perception, not the person across the table's perception. So I want you to start making neutral, like I want you to be more neutral about the money rather than trying to get into your client's wallets and decide what money means to them.

Christa (13:21.977)
Yeah, which being neutral about money, Aislinn, I feel like that's like the premise of being full service of like you are not deciding when your client is done spending, which is what I had done for years. Like, you spent that much. You don't need anything else. I remember Aislinn, a bride literally saying like, hey, I need a bridal portrait frame. And I was like, oh, here's a good company, right? Like you're not going to want to pay to do it through me, right? People were literally on my lap asking and I was pushing them away, assuming that for them. So.

Aislinn McKenna (13:40.461)
Haha!

Christa (13:48.905)
What are some really good steps? I don't put you on the spot here. You're just so strong with mindset. For photographers that really see, my gosh, that is exactly what I struggle with. Like, I'm the one saying, this is too much for my clients. They're done spending, you know, all these things. Like, you tell me, like, what would be good starting steps for mindset work for that photographer?

Aislinn McKenna (14:09.516)
Yeah, so I actually have a mindset membership because I have so many people ask me about mindset. It's called expand your mindset. We'll talk about it at the end of this. But essentially, like, I get this question all the time of like, you know, how do I overcome this, like, belief around something? And I think the very first thing we have to do when we like confront a belief is awareness. Awareness is going to be one of the biggest things that we can do for ourselves is like looking at this belief and then really, really poking holes in the story.

Christa (14:13.354)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christa (14:25.077)
Hmm.

Aislinn McKenna (14:38.25)
Is it actually true? Without a shadow of a doubt, is it actually true? Or is it my perception of the truth? That right there is one of the biggest things that I help my clients with and I tell my clients all the time. like, you have got to poke holes in your limiting beliefs rather than trusting them as the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So I would say first steps is awareness. And then I would say after that, there needs to be almost this kind of like,

Christa (14:58.215)
Yeah!

Aislinn McKenna (15:06.124)
being the moderator of your life kind of like hat that you're putting on rather than being like a like yes be an active participant in your life I want that for you but also like start to observe what are the patterns I'm noticing what are the common thoughts that are coming up for me where am I noticing like triggers or where am I noticing things are making me feel uncomfortable internally that has very little to do with actual like the external is a lot of it's the internal stuff so

Again, awareness is like the first thing. And then being the moderator just means being able to notice and not judge. Notice the thought, we are not trying to judge it. We are just trying to like look at it and kind of like, you know, turn it around in our hand and be like, huh, where did that thought come from that I'm too expensive? Where did that thought come from that I can't charge that? Or where did that thought come from that somehow like I'm not allowed to receive that, but Christa can receive it or Aislinn can receive it. So.

Christa (15:43.465)
Wow.

Christa (15:53.982)
Right.

Christa (16:03.826)
Interesting.

Aislinn McKenna (16:04.79)
I'd say those are kind of like the first steps as far as mindset goes.

Christa (16:07.805)
And then do you just kind of work from there? So let's say you're like, I had three people in a row tell me I'm too expensive. So I think Christa, I'm too expensive now. Like what would you say if a client came to you and said that?

Aislinn McKenna (16:19.096)
I would say your data points are incredibly tiny and you need to stop making assumptions off of three data points. That's silly. If you were to take a scientific study and they only had three data points, you could never trust that study, ever. It's not a valid thing.

Christa (16:26.535)
Yeah.

Christa (16:35.08)
Wow, I love that. And that's very subjective. Like that's not something like, I like how you went straight to like the facts, like not even emotions based, but like, let's look at the reality of this. Like we can't change our business model for three people.

Aislinn McKenna (16:47.82)
Yeah, I'm going to blow some y'all's minds right now. Emotions and thoughts are two different things. And you cannot necessarily trust either of them as the truth. Emotions and thoughts are two different things and neither of them are technically the truth. So if you're having an emotion of unworthiness or you're having an emotion of like worry or fear or fear of judgment or anything like that.

Christa (16:55.474)
Wow.

Aislinn McKenna (17:15.896)
That's not the truth. That's just an emotion that's coming up for you. That's just a thought that's coming up for you. And those are two separate things. So you can start to separate out, I am feeling an emotion and I am having this thought, it's really gonna help you kind of like break through some of this stuff.

Christa (17:17.043)
Mmm. Wow.

Christa (17:29.596)
Okay, so you just said we might have thoughts or emotions, like, I'm not good enough to charge that, everyone's gonna tell me no, but that doesn't have to be true. Wow.

Aislinn McKenna (17:41.762)
Yeah, like y'all just take a second to take that in.

Christa (17:42.749)
And that's a huge, no, and I heard something recently, Aislinn on a podcast saying that, and I'd never heard of it that way. And then I think then the next step Aislinn would be like, we need to then grab the reins and start retraining those things to what is true. So how do we take the steps moving towards that? You had said, y'all I'm taking notes over here. I hope you guys are. So we take, we have awareness, we observe what's going on.

What are some solid first steps to then retraining our minds? Because Aislinn, I I tell my students mindset, it can almost be like a cancer, right? It's easier to treat cancer stage one than when you get to stage four and you're having to really dig yourself out of a hole, right? And I say mindset is the same way. We have to really get on it. We've had a mindset coach share how many thoughts we have a day. I cannot remember the number, but it is astronomically huge. So what are some good?

practical steps to like retrain that mindset of I'm not good enough, I can't charge my worth. Like it's only gonna work for Christa and Aislinn.

Aislinn McKenna (18:45.772)
Yeah, I think the very first thing is finding proof. So part of the reason why, like Christa, you mentioned this earlier, part of the reason why Christa even believed that she could do full service is because she had people she trusted around her saying, A, yes, you can, and B, let me be the proof for you. Until you have proof for yourself, let me be the proof for you. So that's the first thing is finding proof, like for yourself, like so that your brain can look at it be like, okay, cool, that's available to me.

Christa (18:48.371)
Mmm.

Christa (19:12.562)
Mm.

Aislinn McKenna (19:12.844)
And the second thing is you can ask yourself the question of what am I available for? So I literally just had to do this with myself. Like I do this all the time where I'm kind of like, okay, like I'm noticing a pattern or I'm complaining a lot or something's coming up for me and it doesn't feel good internally. Okay, like what's the thought that's attached to this? What am I letting go of? Like what do I need to let go of here? Like where is this an ego-based like thing that needs to get let go of? And then what am I available for?

You can't look at what am I available for until you clear and let go of stuff and release the stories that you're attached to. That's when, once you've done some of the mindset work and you're like, okay, I'm gonna release this and I'm gonna stop doing this and I've noticed this pattern and I'm choosing to not do that anymore. Okay, if I'm choosing to not do that anymore, what am I available for? What do I want to choose? How do I wanna show up? What do I want to start to experience in my world, essentially?

Christa (20:02.246)
Hmm

Christa (20:09.607)
Wow, but it has to start with like having the room to do that you're saying and not like having your mind filled with all these negative things. And I think that's excellent when, you know, I coach students and even see it with myself where you're plugging along and then one small thing completely derails you, right? And it's like, I thought I was on track here. Or I thought this client was about to place a big order and they didn't really putting that aside and telling yourself what is true.

Aislinn McKenna (20:33.698)
Yeah, yeah. And then also like detaching is like one of my favorite things to talk to my clients about, but detaching from the outcome. So like, if you're going into a sales session, you are there to serve. You are there to co-create with those clients. And if they choose to not have a big sale or they choose to not spend the money right now, A, it doesn't mean that they won't spend money with you in the future. B, that is their autonomous choice.

Christa (20:40.594)
Mmm.

Aislinn McKenna (21:00.64)
as to what they do with their money and what they choose. That right there is gonna help you kind of detach from this space of like, somehow I'm wrong for not having a big sale or whatever. Like I trust their timeline. I trust that they're gonna choose what is in best interest for them. And it gets to be like a co-creative space where I am offering them like the solutions. I am offering them the different like options that they have, but I want them to choose from place of desire.

rather than a place of, have to do this because Christa's pressuring me to do this or Aisling's pressuring me to do this. I would never want that kind of relationship with my clients. So I think like releasing this pressure of every sale has to be X amount or every sale has to be a big sale. It's like, no, no, like this sale could be $200 today. They come back to you in six months and spend $4,000. Like you don't know that. You have no idea what's going to happen with them. Yeah.

Christa (21:52.73)
I love that. So like just detaching words like I'm not a failure either way. I'm there to serve. And when you go in with that goal, like that's your win. I love that. And you're dealing and y'all like with Aislinn, you know, I'm doing just the portrait space. I stepped back from weddings sooner than you did, but like you were dealing with some really high caliber transactions. Do you want to talk about like using IPS in the wedding space at all and shift into that Aislinn? And then we'd love to hear just like what you do now that pertains to that.

Aislinn McKenna (22:00.686)
Yeah, yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (22:22.2)
Yeah, absolutely. So when I think about in-person sales, in-person sales is interesting because I was a destination. Wedding photographers of my clients lived all over the country. And so a lot of in-person sales were actually like Zoom sales or phone call sales. we didn't live in the same city. like, I'm not, sorry, I'm not gonna drive to Atlanta or drive to New York to come see you. But what I would say about like doing this with wedding clients is A, you have to find your specific way of

Christa (22:29.871)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christa (22:34.947)
Yeah!

Aislinn McKenna (22:51.63)
doing sales and you have to find your specific way of making it feel like a win for you and a win for your clients. So for me, part of that was custom proposals. So I started doing custom proposals. I think it was in 2019. It might've been 2020, but this is truly where I was able to have 10 K wedding sales, 14 K wedding sales, 13 K wedding sales, 17 K wedding sales. think my, one of my last weddings was 17 K because they added on albums and a couple other things. So when we think about in-person sales, it's not just like,

sitting there with your little product guide and your little samples and stuff like that. That's not the only way to do it. There's a lot of other ways to do it. But I think the important thing is sprinkling it in throughout the entire process. Your clients should not get to you delivering their album and that's the first time they've ever heard you talk about an album. Or, sorry, their gallery and that's the first time you've ever talked about an album. It should be literally...

Christa (23:45.838)
Exactly.

Aislinn McKenna (23:48.96)
in the first time they ever hear back from you in that first email, that first email, the first inquiry during the consultation process, at the engagement session, after the engagement session, before the wedding, after the wedding, at the product sale thing if you have an actual champagne, pop the champagne session or whatever. So I would say as far as doing it in weddings, it's kind of hybrid compared to portraits.

Christa (24:06.276)
Yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (24:14.35)
But yeah, like I teach my clients how to do this if they're interested in it. And it's just one of those things that like, you kind of have to recognize that it's not going to look how other people are doing their sales and doing their like wedding business. And that's going to have to be okay with you.

Christa (24:30.913)
Exactly, and when you dig deep in Aislinn to go off of that, and that's why I teach my students a lot, you can't compare your business to someone else's when you don't know their goals. You don't know what their take home is and what they're making if it's worth it. And I think Aislinn, that's why we've even been surprised that there's some very big industry leaders who completely step away from the photo space. They just got so burnt out, yet.

Some of them maybe we put on a pinnacle for ourselves, not even industry leaders, but other photographers, like you were saying your student can watch and see, because you don't know what's going on in their business and what they are doing might not align at all personally to what you need to achieve your goals.

Aislinn McKenna (25:11.395)
Yeah.

My version of success looks very different than Christa's version of success. And it looks different than anyone else's version of success. Like, of where I am right now running a multi-six figure coaching business where I get out of my pajamas some days and not other days. Part of that is that was my version of success that I was building towards. I wanted to be able to wake up and have a slow morning in my dream home with my three dogs and my wonderful husband, have a cup of coffee, have an hour long conversation

Christa (25:15.224)
Yeah!

Christa (25:27.779)
Yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (25:41.78)
with him if I want to and never feel like I'm rushing towards something. And so for me, what aligns with that? Do portraits align with that? Do weddings align with that? Does coaching align with that? Some version of all three. And so you have to be making your choices based on what's the outcome that I want. What am I building towards? And then what aligns with

Christa (25:44.655)
Mmm.

Christa (25:58.99)
Hmm.

Christa (26:02.861)
I love that. I think that's so beautiful. I think Aislinn, that shows even there was three of us in this little cohort that we've all taken things like in very different ways because we all had those different goals with success. You stayed in the wedding space longer than I did. I did more portraits. Like it's so cool how you can take this when you know how to make money as a photographer and know how to serve your clients well and utilize that in all different areas of your business. And I have no doubt.

that those sales and business tips you learned there are one of the reasons like your coaching business has scaled as big as it has.

Aislinn McKenna (26:34.766)
Absolutely. And I, it's so cool because I literally had a client who this past week, she, she's inside of my signature, like professional, weddings, like, program and inside of their, like, we help a lot of people with sales and mindset and all these different things. But with her, one of the things that she started having happen for her is that she started getting corporate work and she started getting corporate inquiries. And if you don't know how to build a custom proposal and you do not know how to do sales.

Christa (26:46.531)
Yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (27:02.894)
you're not gonna land that $20,000 corporate client. Like we literally just built out a proposal together for a very, very high-end corporate event where if she gets it, she'll be getting paid like 20 to 25,000 for this one event that we're doing. like custom proposals are just kind of an offshoot to me of what I learned from in-person sales.

Christa (27:16.461)
well.

Christa (27:23.971)
Yeah, that's amazing, Aislinn. So let's end with this for those listening and they're like, man, this girl's good. Where can they find you Aislinn? How can they connect with you? We'll link all of this in the show notes, but we'd love to hear more about that.

Aislinn McKenna (27:30.26)
haha

Aislinn McKenna (27:36.108)
Yeah, absolutely. So I help different people in different ways. So the kind of the easiest way to get into my world and probably what's going to be most supportive for the people who are listening to this podcast is my mindset membership, which is called expand your mindset or EYM. So expand your mindset. a monthly membership. It's $97 a month. You come in and every single week there's going to be riffs and different like topics that I talk on. Sometimes it's about how to handle jealousy. Sometimes it's about how to

declutter limiting beliefs. Sometimes it's going to be about your ideal day and how to like script out your ideal day. So EYM, my membership for Mindset is an amazing space. If you're wanting hands-on support, I would highly recommend Success Accelerator program. This is a six month hybrid program slash mastermind where I am digging deep into your emails, your sales skills, your consultation calls, your mindset, and really making sure that you are set up to have a sustainable and

very successful business. Most of my clients go from making like 4K months to like 10 to 15K months inside of SAP because of what we work on inside of there. And then if you are beyond that, you're ready to scale beyond weddings, you have an established wedding business and you're ready to do things like what Christa and I are doing where we're coaching, we have multiple streams of revenue. That's where my mastermind comes into play, where I help people who have multi six-figure businesses or they have multiple businesses and they're really building out scalable income.

Christa (28:37.633)
Wow.

Aislinn McKenna (29:01.25)
And that's where my mastermind comes into play. You can also find me on Instagram at Aislinn Eileen Coaching. And can come say hi, let me know that you found me on this podcast episode. But yeah, Christa, thank you for having me. This was incredible. It was so fun to catch up to. I love this.

Christa (29:08.372)
Yes!

Christa (29:15.619)
my gosh, I'm so glad you took the time to come and speak to us. Thank you, Aislinn, we appreciate it.

Aislinn McKenna (29:21.25)
Thank you so much.