Embracing your next step in business with Aislinn Eileen

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

Summary

In this engaging conversation, Christa and Aislinn McKenna explore the journey of transitioning to full service photography, the importance of mindset coaching, and the value of investing in mentorship. Aislinn shares her personal experiences and insights on creating unique client experiences, overcoming fears in pricing, and the significance of self-investment in achieving business success. The discussion emphasizes the transformative power of mindset and the necessity of stepping out of comfort zones to reach new heights in the photography industry.

Takeaways

• Aislinn McKenna emphasizes the importance of mindset in business success.
• Investing in coaching can lead to significant revenue growth.
• Creating unique client experiences can differentiate your photography business.
• Premium pricing attracts premium clients who value the experience.
• Failure is a part of the journey and can lead to freedom.
• Self-investment is crucial for personal and professional growth.
• Mindset shifts are necessary for photographers to elevate their business.
• Building relationships with clients enhances the overall experience.
• It's important to trust yourself and your capabilities.
• You can fast track your success by learning from experienced mentors.

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Transcript

Christa (00:00.728)
Welcome back. I'm here with Aislinn McKenna. She's been on before. She has even popped into our group and helps with mindset coaching. And we have a really exciting conversation. Aislinn is actually one of the people that had encouraged me at the beginning to shift to being full service. So she has a very special place in my heart. Aislinn, would you introduce yourself for us?

Aislinn McKenna (00:21.804)
Yes, of course. Hi, Krista. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. Again, I am so happy to be here and so excited for this conversation. If we've never met before. Hi guys, my name is Aislinn. You can call me Ace. I was a luxury wedding photographer for 14 years. My last weddings were anywhere between 10 and 17 K and I had a in-person sales process that I took my wedding clients through as well as portrait clients. So that was one of the things that Krista and I like collaborated on way back in the day. And now I have

hired from weddings and I am a full-time coach. I help clients with mindset. I help them with sales skills and truly building a business that feels intentional and grounded and feels like one that you actually want to run. So I'm happy to be here today.

Christa (01:06.604)
I tell my students when you come and speak where I'm like, she's literally a mindset coach for full service photographers. Like you cannot get more niche to exactly what we need than that, which was why I'm so glad. So Aislinn and I, wanted to share a little bit of our backstory, Aislinn. Why don't you go first? Like sharing how I want, I'm excited to share like when you came into my life, but let's go back a step to like how you shifted to being full service.

Aislinn McKenna (01:30.796)
Yeah, so I can talk a little bit about how we met. So we met, I believe it was in 2017, and we were at a conference together. And this conference had several hundred people just milling around this really beautiful old historic property. And I remember just feeling a little bit overwhelmed, and I found a quiet room. And I believe that was where we found each other. We both found a quiet room, and we just sat down and chit-chatted.

Christa (01:55.372)
I remember that room too.

Aislinn McKenna (01:56.756)
Yeah, like I literally remember the little couch and everything. And we just connected over like how we love to serve our clients and like the things that we saw for ourselves. And it's so cool to literally be sitting here eight years later and like the things that we have created in our business because of the dreams that we had back then. So that was 2017. At the time I was doing Shoot and Burn.

It's so funny because we have all these little nicknames and all these little identity boxes we like to put on ourselves, like full service or shoot and burn or luxury photographer. And it's funny because back in the day, I did not think of myself as a shoot and burn photographer. I just thought of myself as a photographer. So in 2018, that was when I first started getting into in-person sales and full service photography. Again, I didn't think of it as full service. I just thought of it as this is how I want to do things and this is what feels good to me.

So in 2018, I took a couple of courses. I hired a coach to like learn how to do this new stuff. It was new back in the day. It's not new in 2025, but this new back of the day style of in-person sales. And I started to like really get into it. And I was talking to my friends about it. I have several friends at the time that I had like, we did little mastermind retreats together, including Krista. And I remember talking to you guys about it. And it was just kind of this like, how do you do that? Like, what do you mean?

Christa (03:17.976)
Yes. Yes.

Aislinn McKenna (03:19.276)
So that's kind of the journey that it started there and it really progressed where towards the end of my career, I was charging $7,000 for some of my wedding albums. I had a $4,000 engagement session. I had a thousand dollar headshot session. Like those are like the accolades if you really want to put them out there. But where it truly started was this desire to do something different than what I had been doing. Because by 2017, I had already been a photographer for

10 years maybe at that point, something like that. So I had already been doing photography for so long that I had kind of hit this point where I was like, yeah, I think I want to do something different and I know that I want it to be better.

Christa (04:01.304)
Totally. And I think it's so interesting when we connected because I was a step behind you where I was still doing shoot and burn actively searching. thought like the three K weddings were the answer. And I remember like when I was looking at the numbers, so you and I connected, we connected with another girl, Andy from Costola and she now actually helps coach in our containers as well, which is so fun how we've all stayed connected. And I remember talking to Edward and

I think even Aislinn, he was telling his family, yeah, Chris is doing something different. And they're like, okay, really? And he's like, she has friends having $6,000 sessions, going through it this way. And he had been along for the ride, same. I had been in the industry for years and years and hitting that wall of, I think something really needs to change. And like you said, there weren't all these different coaching programs you could join to learn. Not that we were.

waymakers, but kind of like there wasn't accessible information on it as before. also Aislinn, I want to talk a little bit about like when you're ready to hire a coach and I'm kind of springing that on you because like that wasn't something that was super normal to do, but it was something that we all did, you know?

Aislinn McKenna (05:09.644)
Mm-hmm. So in, I believe it was 2018, that was when I hired like one of my first business coaches. And I remember it was like $500 a month. And I thought that was insane. Like that was insanity to me to spend $500 a month. I spend right now between like two to 5K a month on mentorship. And that is like, honestly, not even that expensive to me. I know people who charge 10K a month for coaching. So all of that to say.

Christa (05:27.629)
Yes.

Aislinn McKenna (05:37.726)
When you know that it's time for you to like invest in higher level mentorship, not just a Facebook group, not just a course where you don't have access like to custom like coaching, like when you know it's time for that is when you kind of hit this point where you want to go beyond what you've tried before. And when you want to go beyond what you've tried before, the brain is going to rebel. The brain is going to be like, that's not safe. That's uncomfortable. That's new. And it's going to like shrink back.

best thing that you could possibly do for yourself is get into close proximity mentorship with someone who has done it before and is a good fit for you, like mentorship style. That's when I truly think that it's a good idea to get into higher level coaching and invest in mentorship.

Christa (06:22.894)
Yeah, I agree. And I try to use the example too, Asaf, when I invested in my first coach, I can't remember if it was like six grand, paying full or something. And it was really scary because at the time, often why you don't invest in coaching is why you need it. I wasn't making enough money. And like you said, it's a good fit. I remember sitting at one of those conferences and someone came up to me and said, hey, Krista, here are my online gallery sales for the year. And it was like 10 grand. And she was like, and I can help you do the same.

Aislinn McKenna (06:37.12)
Mm-hmm.

Christa (06:48.566)
And it wasn't a fit. instead, this coach helped me add 50 grand, right? Because it was, it was teaching full service. And that investment led to and obviously you get it, we all kind of put our put our own take on it. Hundreds of 1000s of dollars in revenue because of that step. And it is really scary. What would you say? And I'm know I'm springing this on you, but mindset wise to the photographer, that's like, yeah, I know I'm there. But like, it is so scary and hard to pull the trigger. Maybe they've invested in

Aislinn McKenna (06:55.532)
Mm-hmm.

Aislinn McKenna (07:05.899)
Yeah.

Christa (07:16.546)
certain things before that hadn't really panned out, certain courses didn't really give them a lot of traction, what would you say to them?

Aislinn McKenna (07:23.818)
Yeah, I think the first thing I would say to you is getting back into like this anchoring of I am my very best investment.

at the end of my life, it's me and me and I am my very best investment. So if I want to look back on the things that I have done with my life, the moments where I have seen the most growth, the moments where I have seen the most times where I'm proud of myself have been the moments where I've invested in myself and I've chosen myself. instead of thinking of it like money and like attaching like meaning to the money, I want you to attach meaning to investing in yourself and choosing yourself. And that's

That's the story I want you to put behind investment. And sure, I think we've all had investments that haven't panned out or we've had different mentors that we've invested in that we've been like, this is going to be the answer. And it hasn't worked out. And that's OK. You are allowed to have those experiences. But those are not the things that you need to be doing in order to get the things that you want. It's like thinking about it like, well, I lost money here. I didn't work out here. It's like,

Okay, cool. That's part of your journey. Failure is part of the journey. Like I think Taylor's most said in one of her new songs, like failure brings freedom. And so if you have had investments that haven't worked out in the past, stop judging yourself for the investments that you don't think worked out for you. They got you somewhere. They got you where you are right now. Where you choose to go from here is on you.

Christa (08:53.56)
Yeah, exactly. And I think it's interesting, even the mentors that I've been in the room with that have helped me exponentially, someone beside me, I still remember this wasn't getting traction. And when I talked to them, it was, well, you're not doing the work. Like, you're not like, I don't understand the disconnect to like, you have to show up for yourself. And like you said, even if it's not exactly how they do it, it can bring you to that next level. And that's basically what you and I did is we took pieces from all this education we were absorbing. And I even had a mentor one time say like, Krista, you don't have to do how I'm doing it, but tell me what you're doing.

so they can support you on your journey. And I know for you and myself, we now take a more customized approach to our coaching because of that. So I know you and I were chatting before this of like, hey, Aislinn, there's so many things we could like talk about here. We've been on this journey together for now over a decade. Share with me a bit about the experience side of what you offer and how that resonates with you. I think our listeners would love to hear that.

Aislinn McKenna (09:25.536)
Mm-hmm.

Aislinn McKenna (09:47.734)
for on the portrait and the wedding side. Yeah.

Christa (09:49.686)
Yeah, yeah. Like that was one of the reasons I know that you mentioned was a draw to you about that was I don't want to be an in and out drive through. Like I want this to like, and I remember even Ace, I don't know if you remember this, but when you and I were connected, I think it was when we were even visiting you and you lived in Alabama, like you had a client and you were like, I'm going to show up and like not even bring my studio menu because I'm just here to serve them and I will find what serves them best. And then I will give a price. I just think that's fascinating. Sure. More about that.

Aislinn McKenna (10:15.242)
Yeah, absolutely. So when I was a wedding photographer and I was doing in-person sales for the portrait side of things, I went through a whole bunch of different processes to kind of see like what fit. like Krista teaches one process, there are other mentors who teach other processes. You kind of have to like try on all the hats and see like what fits for you. And if you try it once and you say this doesn't fit, that's not enough times to know if it fits for you. So I want to preface like everything I'm saying with that first. So.

When it comes to in-person sales and like full service photography, I really loved the experience of a pop the champagne session. This was something I did for my wedding couples. And I actually don't talk about this very much anymore, even in my coaching spaces, because to be honest, you have to like, you have to like full body commit if you're going to do pop the champagne sessions. Because basically what it was is the clients would at the engagement session decide that they wanted to have a wedding album. That's when they would decide I'm going to book

like, I'm gonna have a wedding album with you, they would pay the deposit, and then after the wedding, they would pay the rest of whatever that wedding album was. And at the time that we were designing the wedding album, we would do a pop the champagne session where we would show them their gallery and like we would show them like, maybe like 100 like of the like, seek peaks basically.

of their wedding images and we would also design their wedding album during the pop champagne sessions. And like we literally had champagne. We literally like had people over at our house in our little like front studio room that we made. And it was so cool because it was just like one of those like nobody else is doing this. I actually told somebody in Alabama I was doing this and they decided that they were going to do it. And so it's one of those things that like if you hear this and you're like, I want to do pop champagne sessions, do it, go for it. I'm not a wedding photographer anymore. So don't really care.

Christa (11:50.519)
Yeah!

Aislinn McKenna (11:58.177)
but it is such a cool way to engage with your clients. And it was a selling point, a big, big selling point for my clients who were spending above 8K with me as a wedding photographer. So that's kind of like one of the things that we did. Another thing that we did was we had a whole bunch of different types of wall art. And my husband, who is very engineer-brained, he was actually the one who would install wall art in our clients' homes. And so we would have like,

metal wall art, had wall art that had wooden frames, we had wall art that was like literally museum quality wall art. And so we would share that stuff with our clients and show our clients like, you know, these are your options, our clients would buy what they were going to buy, and then we would come actually install it in their home. So that was one of the cool things that we offered as well.

Christa (12:47.544)
Yeah, I like that. And one of the things I want to point out is there may be photographers listening to this that are like, don't have the time for that. But when you can add that amount of revenue to the added service, you do have the time and you don't have to serve 10 clients a month to hit your goals. You can be incredibly intentional with each one and find that wall art that speaks to them and have your husband go and install it and have these sit down reveal sessions when they're adding on thousands of dollars. And Aislinn, think a common misconception in the photography space right now is

my gosh, you're just jacking up your rates. And it's like, no, no, no, no. The experience is rising to that next level as well.

Aislinn McKenna (13:23.668)
Yeah, I think that's such an interesting mindset thing of like, you're just jacking up your rates. It's like, okay, like we're not doing this as a hobby. Like we're not doing this. Like I'm not gonna like come to your house and install wall art if I'm not getting paid for that time and paid for paid for that product. Like you don't just, it's not a Christmas gift. like it's something that my clients chose and it's something that my clients like.

One of the things that I think is a really cool mindset shift, if you're looking at doing full service photography, is that this gets to be a experience for your clients that they get to use as something that is something they're doing for themselves. So for example, if I was looking for a brand photographer, I'm not gonna pay $300 for a brand photographer at this point.

I do not want that experience. I know what that experience feels like. I've had that experience. It's fine. I want to pay $2,000 for a brand photographer and know that that is going to be a really cool experience. And it's something that I get to say like, oh, I did that for myself. You get to be that for your clients if you're doing full service. Otherwise it's just like, oh yeah, one Saturday we took photos. Cool. versus.

I had a really cool experience with this photographer and she walked me through designing art for my house. When a guest comes into my house, I can point to that and say, hey, like I had a really cool session and like this was so cool. Like I loved like how the photographer did that. Like you get to be that for your clients, like the conduit for that conversation.

Christa (15:01.592)
Yeah, exactly. And I just was, it's the same with coaching, Aislinn. just was doing a, I love just investing in my education. It was just looking at something where it's like, know, premium rates do attract premium buyers. Like there are buyers, literally it's the same in the wedding space. My 3k weddings often was more work on my end than when I was in the six to 10k range, because like premium prices do attract those premium buyers. So often the reason right now your clients just aren't the vibe and where it's at is it's self-inflicted. We're doing it to ourselves.

by not confidently stepping up into that higher rate. And when we complain like, my gosh, they're all gonna leave. Yeah, some of them will leave. Others for me, they had been great with that. They had been wanting that added service and added value and stayed with me. So what would you say Aislinn, just kind of in our final few minutes, what would you say to the photographer who's like, this sounds incredible. I want to step into that wholeheartedly, but I've served maybe XYZ clients for five years, 10 years.

And I think they just want that couple hundred dollars experience and I'm so afraid of them leaving me.

Aislinn McKenna (16:02.336)
Yeah, I think the first thing is, do you actually know that they want that experience? If you're making up that story in your head of like, people only want it this way, or people only want this experience, that's a story and it's allowing you to stay comfortable. It's allowing you to stay exactly where you are. It's allowing you to keep doing what you've been doing. And if you want the things that you say that you want, you're going to have to do something different.

And in order to do something different, you're going to have to think differently and you're going to have to take actions differently. And it's scary, of course it's scary. But also like, there's so much evidence behind the people who are like here to do big things and the people who are here to like...

get what they want out of life are the people who choose to do it through the fear. They choose to do it anyway. Chris, you and I have had many conversations over the years of how scared we are to do something or invest in something. And we did it anyway. And look, we're sitting here 10 years later, having a conversation about, we're behind the scenes talking about our current businesses. If you told me what we'd be doing in 2025, back in 2017, I would have.

left. Like I would have been like, there's no way like I'm not confident enough for that. And part of I think when it comes to people who are saying like, I want this, but I'm scared to do it. I think it's really just gonna have to come back down to do you trust yourself? Like, do you trust that you are capable of doing things that are difficult? Are you do you trust that you're capable of trying new things? And look at all the proof in your life of all the times that you did something you didn't think you could do.

I can tell you right now, if you're listening to this, there was a time at some point that you thought, I can't charge that. And you are now charging that. There was a time where you thought, I can't attract clients like that. And you are now attracting clients like that. There's nothing different about choosing to do full service or choosing to like raise your prices than those times where you thought, I can't do this. And you did it.

Christa (17:44.227)
Yes.

Christa (17:57.122)
Yeah, I love that. We just had our inner circle retreat and I was talking to one of the girls on it who is in the wedding space shifting to portraits, has had multiple multi four figure portrait sessions like pretty soon after, which I'm like, that took me much longer than that. And I shared that with her when we were looking at, hey, I think we need to do another price increase. And she was really scared. And I was like, if someone had told you, you would be charging now eight grand for weddings at the beginning, of course you would have felt like that, but you're doing it and now it feels verbatim. And the other thing I want to point out that you mentioned is like,

Because you're scared, it doesn't mean it's wrong. It doesn't mean it's a good next step. I tell my students, like, I want you to be a little scared popping into here because it shows me you're going to show up for yourself versus when someone just kind of throws their credit card across the table. It's like, are you understanding? Like, this is going to be a process for you. Like, you're going to have to do the work. And being scared doesn't have to mean this isn't the best step.

Aislinn McKenna (18:48.748)
I've had a lot of clients who come into my coaching spaces who are like, I haven't booked anybody. I actually, had a client who she was charging 7K for weddings. She hadn't booked anybody in like a year and a half. She was like, I don't know what to do. I raised my prices to 8K, nobody's booking me. She came into my space. We worked heavily on identity mindset and then we also worked a little bit on sales skills.

And immediately, within five weeks of hiring me, she had a $13,000 wedding that she booked. And then she's booked several more at like 10 to like 15K. So what you are doing right now does not dictate where you are going. Your actions will, though. So she was scared to invest. And I'm sure you have plenty of client examples like this, too, where it's like they were scared to raise their prices. They were scared to invest. But they did it. And they backed themselves. And I think that's one of the biggest things is backing yourself up, even if you're scared.

Christa (19:42.754)
And then you find, in six months. And I had this happen one time with a student, Aislinn, who did a really well coaching with me. We had talked and six months later, she came back and was like, I have to do this. nothing, nothing has changed. And I'm like, no, I know. I knew you'd be back because it's right. Like we back ourselves up versus that client that jumped in with you. That's, know, tens of thousands of dollars she would have missed out on. Had she not taking that step to, and found you as a coach, found a coach that resonated with her or her weak points were your strengths to get to that next level. So.

Aislinn McKenna (19:54.39)
Yeah, yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (20:12.084)
Yeah, I was gonna say I had a client call this week and a client was asking me like, do I do like wall art for wedding clients? Like she had the pricing for wedding clients like for wall art and she had the samples and I was like, great, love it. And I literally like walked her through like just some of the language that I used to use like when I was like selling wall art and she was like, you made that sound so much easier than.

Christa (20:12.706)
Yeah, what are you gonna say?

Aislinn McKenna (20:37.592)
I thought it was going to be, and I was like, well, I have years of practice. To me, it's easy at this point. If you like put me in a room and told me to sell wall art, I'm like, cool. I could do this with my eyes closed because I practiced and because I put in so much work and I'm sure it's the same for you. But the client is sitting there going like, this is going to be really difficult and really hard. And like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. That is a weakness where I have the strength and I can give you my strength by giving you my templates, by giving you my scripts, by giving you the confidence to do this.

And that's where like those really big shifts happen quickly is imagine if you just kept thinking, this is going to be really difficult, or you just kept thinking, I don't know how to do this. Yeah, you're going to keep thinking those things and it's going to keep being true versus if you invest in someone who this is their strength, you're going to be able to actually like start to shift that for yourself.

Christa (21:26.178)
Yeah, absolutely. Even down to, you know, I've heard that, I'm gonna, I'm just going to go ahead and try to figure this out myself. And it's like, I have spent years doing this, adding, refining, like we can fast track this. I've had students have two grand sales in just weeks versus piecing it together. Right. And same for you with your, you know, with your wedding clients. And part of investing in yourself is fast tracking that, that pipeline for yourself of getting you to that next level.

Aislinn McKenna (21:32.566)
Yeah.

Aislinn McKenna (21:41.962)
Nice.

Christa (21:53.942)
even quicker so that you can rise above. You don't have to be where everybody else is to try and then you give up and it's not working and you have no one to ask for support. So Aislinn, you've shared so much. know on your social media, you do share just even a lot of great content on Mindset. Could you share for those listening who want to connect further with you where they can find you?

Aislinn McKenna (22:12.62)
Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on Instagram at Aislinn Eileen Coaching. So that's the main place that I live and breathe. It's where you will find me hanging out for the most part. You can also look at my website. It's aislinnileen.com. And I have multiple different programs and spaces and resources for photographers. I have a lot of freebies that if you just come into my DMs and you're like, hey, this is the thing that I'm looking to work on, you can come into my DMs. very likely I have a freebie or a class for it.

Christa (22:39.458)
I love that. Well, thank you so much, Aislinn, for taking the time to chat with us. We'll link all of that in the show notes. And I'm excited. I know you're going to be chatting with my students coming up here soon on Mindset. And I'm just grateful to have you as a friend and a colleague in this space.

Aislinn McKenna (22:53.527)
Thank you so much for having me. This was such a blast to be able to talk about these things.