Freedom Focus Photography

When “Doing It Right” Still Fails

• Nicole Begley, Heather Lahtinen • Episode 315

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315 - You did it all right, the call flowed, you connected, you nailed the pricing talk, and then… nothing. In this episode, Heather and I unpack what to do when a client ghosts you even after your best effort, how to stay curious instead of crushed, and why “doing it right” doesn’t guarantee a yes (and why that’s actually a good thing).

What to Listen For:

  • Heather’s 3 phases of the client journey and why phase 3 is the “Wait… what?!” moment
  • The truth about doing everything “right” and why that doesn’t always equal booked
  • Two mental tracks after a “no”: frustration spiral vs. curiosity and growth
  • How to set action goals you control, not outcome goals you can’t
  • Smart follow-up strategies and why more than one is essential
  • Why ghosting isn’t always rejection
  • Turning marketing into something that’s actually fun 
  • How to build resilience and self-trust through every “no”
  • What to do when fear of failure stalls your next inquiry call

Doing everything “right” doesn’t promise a yes but it can teach you exactly what you need to grow. In this episode, learn how to shift from frustration to curiosity, follow up with confidence, and build resilience that leads to more bookings. 

Want hands-on coaching? Join us for Coach Week, Nov 11–13 at 2pm ET. It's totally free, with replays included.  Sign up here - https://www.freedomfocusformula.com/coachweek

Additional Links: 

Join Us for Coach Week: 3 Days of Live Coaching and Breakthroughs to Help You Unlock Your Photography Business Potential
November 11th, 12th, 13th at 2 PM EST Daily

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Nicole Begley (00:00)
Have you ever had one of those client calls where everything just kind of clicks? You connect with your client, you cover pricing, you walk away thinking, ⁓ my gosh, they are going to book for sure. And then crickets. Well, it's happened to all of us. And today we're digging into what to do when doing it right still fails and how to turn that disappointment into momentum. Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:21)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole Begley (01:22)
Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Bagley, the one, the only Heather Lottinen is back in the studio today. Heather, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome back.

Heather (01:32)
Thank you for having me. As always, I love to be here because I think we have very fun, interesting and hopefully inspiring conversations.

Nicole Begley (01:42)
I

hope so. hope so. Yeah, there's been a lot of inspiration happening recently. I mean, you've been on a roll. You had that whole new 4C4W training, this whole new visibility bonanza to help photographers actually get out there and be visible, which we find time and time again is one of the hardest things for people to actually do because of often all the thoughts and judgments we have in our own head.

I'm curious because you guys all know that I love to do a lot of things and tend to have a lot of balls in the air. And what is your secret? Because man, you have been prolific and just some amazing stuff recently.

Heather (02:19)
Thank you. That's interesting that you chose that word because actually one of our elevate members said something like that to me recently. She's like, your content has just been on fire and so prolific. I love that word. And yes, I have felt very, very inspired lately and very focused. So I think if I were to say, what is my secret? I have this desire to help photographers grow their businesses and I'm very focused on

that result. And I'm, and I think this is why, because I am keenly aware of the fact that I only make money when our friends in Elevate make money. So it's, it's like, in that regard, it makes it very easy for me to stay focused on creating the content that they need to solve the challenges that they face. Because when they win, I win.

Nicole Begley (02:59)
That's true, it's ⁓

Yeah, no, for sure. Absolutely.

Heather (03:19)
So I really, Nicole, when it boils down to it, it's a little bit easier for me to stay focused because I only have one job and that job is to help people get past their thoughts or their thinking or overcome their fears and give them the strategies, the tools to get more clients and make more money. So I know I've said this, but I wake up every morning asking myself, how can I speed up everyone making more money? How can I do it faster?

for them and I just want to interact with them as much and as quickly as possible because when I do so, I pick up on what's stopping them and then I put together a course on it. I immediately turn around and put something together. Either that's a challenge like a public webinar or something in Elevate. The visibility workshop was only available inside of Elevate. You can still get it when you join us.

or I reach out to you and I'm like, hey, we need to have a podcast about this certain thing because this is what will help them. And I just, it's my only job. So, and it's fun. I want to help people make more money. They're happy. I'm happy. Everyone wins.

Nicole Begley (04:31)
Everybody wins.

Heather (04:33)
Yes. So in light of that, I do have more up my sleeve. have, I actually have things planned into the first quarter of 2026, but more immediately we have coach week coming up. So we've done coach week in the past. It's three days. We have not done it in a while. We have not. So it's three days of just Q and a bring to me, you know, your questions, your thoughts, anything.

Nicole Begley (04:39)
Tell me.

We haven't done it in a while. Yeah.

Okay. Time

out, time out. It is not just Q and A. So like, feel like, it is hard to find an actual word that describes what coach week is. Like, how do we even describe it? Because yeah, it's not, it's not,

Heather (05:02)
I'm out.

No, no.

Nicole Begley (05:19)
some magic secret thing, which again, there is no magic secret thing that any of us are hiding from anyone until you pay us to tell you like, okay, now you just do this and your business is built. Like, no, there is no secret thing. But yeah, to say it's question and answer, it is like an open forum type thing, but it is so impactful. The one we did, we did two last year.

Heather (05:29)
Wait.

Nicole Begley (05:42)
And the one we did last fall, I just remember as I was able to be there live for all of the calls and it was just like, wow. I mean, it was all of the things that every single one of us struggles with in some capacity, you know, from talking about, you know, concerned about raising prices, concerned about like, how do I get more clients concerned about where they are in their business spaces, like where they quote should be in their business. Like it was such good discussion.

That I don't know how you properly explain what it is other than say you guys just need to join and it's free. So why are you not joining?

Heather (06:15)
Yeah, it's free. So

jump in. Even if you don't get coached. We talk about secondhand coaching, coaching by proxy, but it was so impactful that we had 25 people jump into Elevate immediately following one of those calls because of how impactful it was. And obviously I didn't coach 25 people on that call. But even more impressively, I think, is that we had several people come back.

to elevate. And I thought, man, that says a lot for the program, doesn't it? That they, sometimes you need to take a break and that's totally fair. You know, I've taken a break from my business coach as well. And sometimes you have things going on in life or whatever, but for them to come back just, I think demonstrates the value of the program. And when they spent three days with us on those calls, they were like, whoa, I need to be in this type of environment. So,

Nicole Begley (06:45)
Mm, mm-hmm.

Heather (07:12)
Yeah, I definitely think you should jump in again. It's free. So why not? And just see what all the big fuss is about, you know?

Nicole Begley (07:19)
Yeah. Yeah. Come join us at hair of the dog academy.com slash coach week. what are the dates again?

Heather (07:25)
It is November 12th, sorry, 11th, 12th and 13th at 2 p.m. Eastern. Three days. Thank you for asking, Nicole. We have a replay page for you and though watching the replay, let me just say this. Sometimes I'm not able to attend all of my mastermind calls with my business coach, but watching replays has changed my life because I can just sit there. You you could sit there and edit a session and have

Nicole Begley (07:32)
Well, Heather, what if I can't join live?

yeah.

Heather (07:54)
have Coach Week on your device next to you and be learning so much. mean, so many breakthroughs happen from watching the replay. And I think that's because it's sometimes easier to see a challenge or an issue in someone else before you can recognize it in yourself. But that becomes illuminating. You hear somebody talk and you identify with it and you're like, yeah, I kind of have those same thoughts. And then you watch them get coached and you're like, what?

I never would have thought of it that way had I not watched someone else walk through that process. for sure, join us live if you can. If not, the replays are highly valuable and also free. So what the hell?

Nicole Begley (08:39)
Yeah, no, I love nothing more than when I'm like out and have to go to the grocery store, like do like adulting things that I secretly be listening to, you know, some of my replays of the programs I'm in. So yeah.

Heather (08:51)
It makes it feel worthwhile, doesn't it? Like, yeah, yeah, I'm the same way.

Nicole Begley (08:53)
It does. And then you can concentrate

on that because I can concentrate on doing that. I have a hard time even editing to listen to replays. So for me, like being able to take it on the go and podcasts really works for my brain. Cause even when I'm editing and still like trying to make decisions on like a little more black, little less black. So I can't really concentrate on that. but yeah, no, it's, it's fantastic. And we'll have, I think we'll, we'll put it on a private podcast feed too. So you guys can easily take it on the go.

Heather (09:01)
Mmm. Mmm.

I mean, and that's pretty amazing because I listen to things like that when I am cooking, cleaning, driving, walking, exercising, all of those things.

Nicole Begley (09:29)
Well see, I don't

cook or clean, Heather.

Heather (09:32)
well, how do you eat? How do you eat in your home?

Nicole Begley (09:36)
I end up, I've gotten really good at DoorDash picking things up or just waiting for like somebody else to cook something.

Heather (09:44)
If

you wait long enough, somebody will get hungry enough that they'll make something.

Nicole Begley (09:46)
Yeah,

yeah. So sometimes my kids make stuff and then I'm like, can I have some too? I'm going to have a teacher parenting course next.

Heather (09:52)
Okay, that's a good strategy.

my gosh. Yeah. How to parent. I love it. I love it. No, that's

a great point about the private podcast feed. And don't we have the ability to throw in some past episodes that we put together? We had curated. Yes, we have this. Yeah, we.

Nicole Begley (10:11)
Yeah, yeah. So when

you register, you'll get immediate access to that podcast feed, which has just some previously curated great conversations, whether you've heard them on the podcast before or not, like they might be worth a re-listen. And yeah, and then we'll upload the calls to that as well.

Heather (10:27)
Listen, that's brilliant. Okay. So thank you for putting that together. And also someone asked me recently, you know, they're busy. Everybody has, everybody's busy. Like you have things in your personal life. You have things with your photography or maybe your corporate job. And she said, when should I join Elevate? You know, based on like she was telling me all of her things. And I said, well, when you're ready to make more money and when you're ready to do that, then you just like, give me a call, reach out. I mean,

Let's not wait to make money. And by the way, when you're ready to make money and do it with like a little more lightness, have a little more fun, remove some of the stress and anxiety and feel really, really supported. So when you're ready to make money and feel supported, so you don't feel like you're always stuck or spinning, that's when you join.

Nicole Begley (11:14)
I love the piece you said about making it fun. I think that's a secret key. Remember I just said there's no secrets? All right, here's the secret, but I'm going give it to you for free. Have more fun in your business. Ask yourself, how can marketing my business be fun? Even if it's something that you know you have to do and you're like, oh, I know that's not going to be fun, but can you make it fun? Can you make it a challenge to make it more fun? There are different ways and when we look at our business and the things we need to do to move that business forward,

And we choose to look at them as like, A, it's a choice for me to do this. It's a choice for me to run my business. And sometimes if I want to have this outcome, there's certain things that are required to get that outcome, but we can choose how we approach them as either like, I have to reach out to this charity to ask them if they can do this little fundraiser thing. like, I mean, that's not a fun way to reach out to them.

or it's also probably not going to be successful because of the energy you're bringing to the table. So like, how can you switch it to be like, my gosh, I can't wait to do something that's going to benefit them, benefit me and benefit the people that choose to participate. Like how great is this? It's just that little tiny shift really can change everything.

Heather (12:28)
It's so I love what you said there. So important what you said about energy. It's like, do you remember when you first started photographing and you would get some photos that you really loved and when you wanted to generate energy, you would pick up your camera and go have fun with it and it would give you energy. It would feel so exciting and so fun. Like I used to photograph weddings for 10 hours, you know, which is definitely exhausting. But I loved it so much that that

process, all of it gave me energy, like pumped me up rather than, you know, sucked the life out of me or, or like dreading pricing or marketing or whatever. I just, I just want to drop the idea, like give people offer the possibility that pricing and marketing when viewed differently could actually give you energy. It could feel excite, like what if, what if, what if, just what if that were possible? What would it look like?

Nicole Begley (13:18)
⁓

Heather (13:26)
reach out to someone or be more visible and actually it gave you energy. How much? Well, let's say this would definitely be easier to do, wouldn't it?

Nicole Begley (13:34)
Yeah. Yeah. When you look forward to doing it, you would actually do it. you'd get better results from it. and even, yeah, I mean, just, just that one, it's just a little tiny shift, but that is truly the key to unlock so much. Like it's an outsized return for a small shift and it's, it's easy. It's not always, or it's simple. It's not always easy. So it's a simple thing. And I think people get hung up on like, well, okay. But.

Heather (13:58)
right.

Nicole Begley (14:03)
I want to do that, but how, but that's what kind of the coaching inside of coach week will help us start to shift because it is nuanced. It isn't as simple as just like, I will have fun now. Like, like, you know, because we have a lot of subconscious beliefs and programming and, and it, our brain just goes back to kind of its default setting. So it takes a little bit of time to start to rewire that default setting and, and a little practice of like, all right, what to look for. How can I.

How can I recognize where I am right now on a scale of one to 10, how excited I am about this thing in my business, and how can I amp it up a little bit? So there's a lot of nuance to it, but it really is focusing on that gives you the best bang for your buck in return because you guys know what to do. I don't think any of you are out there like.

I just, I just don't know. I just have literally no idea what to do in my business. And okay, I get it. When you're just starting out, like maybe you actually don't know what to do yet. Cause you're just starting out and you're like, no, seriously, Nicole, I don't know what to do. Just tell me what to do. So yeah, I have that in my programs. You have that in elevate. you get free and a focus formula when you're in elevate. so there's plenty of how, but yeah, it's just that, that little bit of shift.

Heather (15:21)
Yeah, because I think what you're really

saying even, you know, we tend to say this, I don't know how even I don't think that's what you're actually saying. I think what you're saying is I'm afraid this won't work. It's because we could tell you how and to some degree you already know the how I don't think that's what you're actually asking. And well, for sure.

Nicole Begley (15:32)
Mm-hmm.

think it could be various things. could be definitely,

yeah, it could definitely be afraid it won't work, but it could also be, you you're afraid of the process, not even like totally removed from the outcome. You're just afraid of the process of, you know, of making yourself visible. We talked about that on the most recent episode about visibility. Yeah. So yeah, there's just a lot of ways that can manifest, I think.

Heather (16:01)
Yeah, the fear. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's why it is so important to talk to me because you don't realize that this is going on. I, my job is to help you uncover it so we can break through it. It's, it's really, it can be really impactful. And you, I, who was I talking to? It was last week in the elevate strategy call. She was just telling me a story, you know, what was going on. I don't think she had a specific question.

which I love by the way, you don't have to have a specific question. You just tell me a story. This is what's happening. It's my job to pick up on the nuances that are holding you back or maybe slowing you down. And then we can talk through it. But anyway, we talked through something and she was like, I had no idea that that was my issue. And I never would have known it had I not just like talked to you, just like, tell me the story.

Nicole Begley (16:56)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (16:57)
great. It's super impactful. My favorite thing to do is to coach and help people. And I have thankfully been able to set up a business where I get to do it almost all day every day and it fills my soul. Not to be dramatic.

Nicole Begley (17:11)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓

Heather (17:16)
Okay, but that's not even what we're talking about today.

Nicole Begley (17:18)
Well

my gosh, alright, well let's dive into it. Come join us for Coach Week. careofthedogacademy.com slash Coach Week. word.

Heather (17:25)
Okay, so I wanted to introduce this concept to you and to our listeners because, well, let me back up and say, Heather, how do you know that we need to talk about this? Well, again, because I'm coaching all day every day, I see things come up repeatedly and I'm like, well, that's definitely something we need to talk about. So what I want to do today is just zoom in on a part of the overall process of getting and working with clients. So.

We're talking about client workflow here, but I am zooming in on one particular area. And this is the part where they inquire and you start to have a conversation. So whether that conversation is just via email back and forth, or I know a lot of our friends will get people on either a phone call or a zoom call so that they can like talk about next steps. Yes. Yep. You're tracking this. Okay. So I broke that there's a.

Nicole Begley (18:01)
Okay.

Yep.

Heather (18:19)
There's a statement here you'll hear. Okay, let me just dive into the three phases that I basically made up. phase one is where you're sort of hustling to try everything. Like maybe you're tweaking your pricing, you're changing things with how you post or how you talk to people, whether that's in person or online. So you're just like trying a lot of different things, right? You're constantly working to improve the pricing and the marketing. So that's what I call phase one.

Phase two is when you start feeling like, okay, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this. You're starting to feel just a tiny bit, tiny bit more confident. Like it's starting to creep in that, okay, I actually know what I'm doing. This reminds me of, I remember photographing families and babies sort of before I got into weddings and when it really hit me, okay, I do understand aperture.

actually get it now, you know, where that confidence just starts to creep in. So this is what I'm calling phase two. And then phase three, have entitled, wait, what? That's the title of it. Wait, what? And this is where you feel like I did everything right. And I still did not get the client, the client did not book. And this is the phase that can lead to extreme frustration.

Nicole Begley (19:14)
Yeah, yeah.

Hehehehe

Heather (19:41)
you can feel really defeated at this point because again, you're like, wait, what, how, how could I still be missing something? I, I thought I was doing everything right. And I don't think I'm missing anything. Wait, am I missing something? And I've actually said this, this is how I know this is a ubiquitous issue is because I've said this to my coach. I've said things like I'm doing everything right. And it's still not working. That's the statement I'm zooming in on. I'm doing everything right.

Nicole Begley (20:05)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (20:09)
where I think I'm starting to do most things right and it's still not working. So one of our Elevate friends actually said this to me very recently and it was after she had talked to a few potential clients. I don't know if she does phone or Zoom, but it doesn't matter. She was like, Heather, I did everything right and it felt good and we had a connection and we talked about everything like the actual session, how everything goes, the pricing, everything.

We had a great conversation. Like, essentially, I nailed it.

Nicole Begley (20:41)
Yeah, right.

Heather (20:42)
And then they ghosted me.

Nicole Begley (20:46)
mean, okay. I mean, we have a whole episode. I'm going link to the show notes about the ghosting. but that's a whole, another conversation that we don't have time for today. But if you haven't listened to that one, listen.

Heather (20:51)
Right.

Yeah, it's very good. OK. And I said, well, OK, first of all, they still might book right there. There should be multiple follow ups. This is required, whether we like it or not, because we don't know. Maybe they forgot they got busy. There was a death in the family. There's who knows who knows. So there's that. But let's say because I like to entertain this.

Nicole Begley (21:01)
Right.

Heather (21:19)
Let's say they don't actually book. Let's say you do the follow-ups, everything, you had this great conversation where you connected, you felt like the energy was good, you were really in it, and they don't book. That's what I want to talk about. I did everything right, and they didn't book. How does this feel?

Nicole Begley (21:37)
Defeating. mean, it's like, well, what, am I even doing here?

Heather (21:41)
What am I even doing here? So frustrating. It's frustrating. Have you ever had that feeling, whether it was your photography business or all the time?

Nicole Begley (21:49)
yeah. Yeah, I mean,

think everybody has. I would feel like be hard pressed to find anyone that hasn't felt that way for something.

Heather (21:56)
In some area, right. It's like, wait, I did that right and it still didn't work. I think this can often produce like a freeze response. you're like, wait, I don't know what I did wrong because I thought I did everything right. And it's so, so, so disheartening. And my initial response to this was, yes, you probably did do everything right. But that does not

Nicole Begley (22:05)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (22:24)
guarantee a booking and it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

Nicole Begley (22:25)
Mm Right.

Yeah. I mean, I think that goes down to, mean, I always talk about two for goals. Like you always, people are focused on maybe I want 10 clients or I want $50,000 this quarter or whatever their goal is. And there's this outcome driven goal. I like to break that down and be like, all right, what actions do I need to take to reach that goal? Because at the end of the day, you can't control what other people do and don't do. And we've talked about this before a lot too, that, that

Heather (22:59)
That's it.

Nicole Begley (23:02)
Our job is not to convince someone to buy. Our job is to highlight the value that we offer and let them choose. We stay out of their pocketbook. We stay out of their ideas, their head, like they get to choose. So I like to kind of move my goals, figure out what outcome I want, and then ask myself, what do I actually need to do that is a one or zero, yes or no, like black or white? Did I do it? And if I did it, I'm winning.

Heather (23:28)
Right?

Nicole Begley (23:29)
Next time I'll get a better result. Yeah.

Heather (23:31)
Right? Right? Or I'll just keep trying. But

I I've said this. And then when she said it, I was like, yeah, I can see this frustration of like, well, wait a minute. Somewhere along the way, we've convinced ourselves that if we do everything right, we should get a client. Like we should get a result. And when I said this to her, I was like, you probably did do everything right. And they still didn't book because we're not guaranteed that we don't deserve that. We didn't earn it. We don't know.

Nicole Begley (23:47)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (23:59)
When I saw this, the look on her face was like this realization that, my gosh, I was thinking that. I was thinking it would guarantee me a client. I think it felt somewhat revolutionary to her. Still frustrating, okay? But maybe a little bit liberating. And that's because we learned to release expectations. It's the expect...

that if we do everything right, we'll get a client that gets us into trouble. And it's just good to know that sometimes that can be unrealistic.

I'm not guaranteed a client because even if I did it right, even if I checked all of the boxes, that doesn't mean it will land with them. It doesn't.

Nicole Begley (24:47)
Right? I mean, and again,

like you said, there could be situations completely out of their control and they want to book, but something just happened in their life that they can't right now, you know, and maybe it's just a not right now.

Heather (25:01)
Yeah, and there could be a million reasons, a million, and we just don't know. But again, these expectations, it's what gets us in trouble because we all want a guarantee, which is why people come to us and want the checklist of just tell me what to do. I promise I will do it. I'm a good student. I will check the boxes. I will do it right because I want my guarantee that that will get me a client.

Nicole Begley (25:03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (25:26)
And hey, listen, me too. Okay. I wish, I wish that was the, the way it worked, but we might, know, you, me, we might just be underestimating what someone needs to hear or the way they need to hear it or the amount of times they need to hear it or, or how many people I need to put that in front of in order to get the ones that ultimately will book me. And we just.

We just need, this is just about an awareness of what we're expecting. So, okay, this is, this is where I took this. I picture us like at this juncture. And I want you to imagine you're at an intersection, you're on a train. Okay. You're at an intersection where, where the train, the track split into two different directions. We're at this juncture where we think we did everything right. And the first track.

is like a frustration spiral. know, this first track, we, if we go down this thinking of, well, it should have worked. I should have gotten the client. And then you feel extreme frustration and defeat and a bunch of confusion. Well, this track leads nowhere because you will hesitate. You will second guess. You will procrastinate, spin and confusion. why zero, zero. But I have to tell you that is

Nicole Begley (26:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

There's zero benefit for that track.

Heather (26:51)
absolutely where your brain will automatically go every single time. You have to know this because then it's not surprising. You're like, yes, Heather said this was going to happen. And then I want to give you the alternative. The second track that opens up when we think, OK, maybe they just literally did not want a photo session. Like, period, maybe it's that simple. Maybe they don't want photos.

Nicole Begley (26:56)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (27:17)
I am not guaranteed results. I'm allowed to feel disappointed, but this isn't a problem. Like we're not going to make this a problem.

Nicole Begley (27:24)
It's

not about me. It's not about what you did or didn't do. Yeah.

Heather (27:27)
Never!

So I can continue doing what I'm doing, like everything that I think is right and I know to be true. I can experiment with the next inquiry call. I can try new things. I can shift my language, whatever that looks like. I just want to offer, what would it look like to get curious, to shift from the judgment of this is bad, this is a problem, to curiosity with some lightness, like, okay, this is really interesting. What?

Could I try next? I do believe everything I'm doing is good and right, but maybe maybe there's more that is that opens up like I think this track opens up possibility because it keeps you in motion. And then when you're in motion, guess what you do? You build momentum. Therefore, I think it's actually good when you think you did everything right and you don't get the client. Because it forces you.

Nicole Begley (28:06)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mmm.

Heather (28:25)
to learn something different, keep moving forward in spite of or because of, yeah, your disappointment, your frustrations.

Nicole Begley (28:30)
Well, that's a great shift. I mean, it's the same thing too.

And yeah, whenever you don't get the results that you were looking for, maybe you put together a mini session type thing and you promoted it and it did not get the bookings that you wanted. So your choices are to sit into that spiral to do of I suck. This is terrible. I, why am I doing this? Yada, yada, yada. I'll never make this work. I just need to lower all my prices. Doesn't mean just nothing good. versus, huh, interesting.

I wonder what could have happened here. How could I improve it next time? Is there, I actually get it out to as many people as I hoped? Like how many people actually said no? Like maybe you didn't actually get it in front of enough people. Did you send it to your email list one time and then never followed it up? People are busy. They forget. They market. mean, Heather, I have my phone somewhere else. I have 120 text messages unread on my phone because I just can't keep up with them.

Heather (29:13)
Right.

Nicole Begley (29:24)
So, and like that you get the codes and stuff, which it pops up and I put it in and I'm like, I don't have the time to go and delete all those or reopen them for something that I already know is there. anyway, yeah, like how, how could things be like, it just opens up, like you said, possibility instead of just like the other way it slams the door shut of like, there's nothing we can do here. It takes away your power.

Heather (29:27)
Yes.

100%. So that track just like falls off a cliff and you're like basically dead or the other one keeps you moving forward and you just knowing this now that you've heard this, you just have to ask yourself, which track do I want to choose today? My brain is going to choose the one that drives us off of a cliff, but how could I choose curiosity? Which means every time someone says no, you win.

Nicole Begley (29:54)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (30:14)
because if you can keep moving through your disappointment alongside of your disappointment, it doesn't have to be a problem. You build resilience through self trust and you can never go wrong building that skill, which means you probably need more people to say no so that you can build more of that. So what if you looked at that and you were like, yeah, that's true. Again, you don't have to love it. It can still feel, you know, disappointing, but

You can choose to think, okay, well, I guess this is what I needed because it's going to build resilience. It's going to make me stronger, better, faster. then things will, I don't know, how should we say this, Nicole? It's not that they do get a little easier, but like.

Nicole Begley (30:59)
Well,

I think you build resilience and that you also start to realize that occasional no's happen. mean, you are never going to get to the point in your business where every single person you talk to is a yes. Ever. I don't care what business you're in. And if you are, well, you probably need to raise your prices or something needs to shift because you should be hearing no's. That's part of running a business. there's just so much

Heather (31:12)
Yeah.

right.

Nicole Begley (31:24)
thinking that goes along with that of, you know, making sure that when that happens, that we don't fall into that spiral and that we can also look at that as an opportunity. And we also are looking at marketing our business is letting people know of the service we offer and remembering to kind of drop into that, that service that us not marketing our business is doing a disservice to clients because like,

People want what we have, maybe not every person all the time every day, but there are people out there that will treasure what we are offering them for a lifetime, and it is our responsibility to make sure they know it's an option.

Heather (32:06)
I love that. I love it's our responsibility. sometimes guess what? It's going to be challenging. And people will say to me like, Heather, but it's just so hard to keep going when you hear no after no, when you think you're doing it right and like hold all of that disappointment. And I'm like, yeah, I know. And guess what? I've got you. You please come into my world so that I can help you.

Nicole Begley (32:08)
Thank you.

Heather (32:32)
manage that, like manage your mind through that so that you will continue to keep going. And you ultimately will figure out a lot of things that work, a lot of things that don't work. And your success is inevitable. As long as you don't stop, let me help you make that a little bit easier and less painful by number one, normalizing it. Like, yes, this sucks. And I can keep going. And ultimately this is working in my favor.

I win, win, I win. Just reminding yourself, I'm always winning.

Nicole Begley (33:00)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. my gosh. So good. I hope you guys found this conversation helpful today. I certainly did. I enjoyed it. And, don't forget to join us for coach week, November 11th, 12th and 13th, 11th, 12th and 13th. ⁓ sign up for free at hair of the dog academy.com slash coach week one word. and we'll see you there. All right. Thanks Heather. See you guys next week.

Heather (33:14)
Yes, that is correct. Yes.

Thank you.