Peter: Alright, what's up, guys? Peter here. Today we're joined by an incredible client, the amazing Sara Haines of Sara Haines Photography. Sara has an amazing story, and she's been an awesome client. We're going to get into all of that. But real quick, Sara, give us a little intro. How long have you been shooting weddings?

Sara: I started my business in 2015. While I was building the business, I was also working as a full-time school teacher. I was a teacher for close to 20 years. As things progressed, it became really challenging to juggle two full-time jobs. By spring 2023, I had to make a decision. I needed to focus on one thing, and it was just too much on my family. So I resigned from my full-time teaching position, with the pension and benefits. It was a scary, "I can't believe I'm doing this" situation.

Sara: Right now, sitting here, I'm fully booked for all of 2025. But in summer 2023, I was thinking, "I have enough income to get me through to winter, and then what?" In Pennsylvania, there aren't many weddings in January, February, March, and April. I needed a way to feel secure and know we've got this, because this is how our systems work. That was the other thing: I didn't have systems in place.

Peter: Let's dig into that. You're a teacher, so you have your own lesson plan and framework for thinking about this. Walk us through what happened.

Sara: It exploded. It exploded so much that I was juggling a whole lot. We started the initial training at the end of July, and the Facebook ads turned on in August. In July my income was about $22,000, and the next month it skyrocketed to over $50,000. That was just the first month of paid advertising with you.

Sara: August, September, and October were super fast and intense, not going to lie. But it's what I wanted.

Peter: You don't go from part-time to $500K a year in a year and a half unless you push, at least for a season. Obviously you're not working like that now. Life is very different. But I think it helps to think in seasons: take the next 90 days and go all in.

Sara: Peter, I'll tell you, in the past two years I feel like I've failed more times than I've succeeded. I could let those failures crumble me, and there have been times, don't get me wrong, when I've thought, "What am I even doing? Do I even want to do this anymore?" But once you get through the pity party, you realize how much you've learned. Instead of seeing it as a failure, it's, "Okay, here's how we're going to change it next time. Here's how we'll try it differently." And it might fail again. We've put the wrong people in places, we've had to let people go, we've had to change so many things. You just have to go with, "If this doesn't work, there are a million other ways."

Sara: This is an overview of 2023 for me, showing my booked revenue. I was teaching through May, then I handed in my resignation and had my summer weddings during ideal wedding season. At the end of July I started working with you and turned on the Facebook ads, and you can see things skyrocketed here.

I don't know if you remember this, Peter, but when November hit, I said, "Peter, what's going on? November wasn't as good. Am I doing something wrong?" That's when you taught me that business has ebbs and flows. You told me to relax, it's okay. I had to learn that everything was going to be fine, because when you look at 2024, it just kept climbing.

Sara: But you can see I have over $400,000, and that's just wedding revenue. It doesn't include the album sales process we've also put in place. We have 80 weddings booked for next year, and every one of those packages includes an 8×8 album. We'll work with each couple to design that album, and the upsell is usually around $2,000 to $3,000. At 80 weddings, that's truly a blessing. I don't have any other way to say it.

Sara: For example, if we found out a couple was planning a wedding in the Poconos, the setter would say, "We have a great resource on that." If we didn't have one, we'd use AI to quickly create a blog post about the Poconos, add some of our photos, and send it to them. They'd say, "Oh my gosh, that's incredible."

The other problem I had was no-shows for consultations. I was so annoyed. What could we do to get more people to show up? It's the craziest thing, but the morning of the consultation, I'd text them: "Hey, so excited for our consultation today!

Here's a little treat for you to enjoy during our meeting." And I'd send them a $5 Starbucks gift card. With Apple Pay, you can send it right from your phone. Then they think, "Oh, I have to show up. She gave me a gift card." I only do it for consultations, not for every inquiry, or I'd go bankrupt. But they kept showing up. It's like a hidden secret that really, really works.

Sara: When I first started, one of your trainings walked through a full consultation, and I studied it. I thought, "There's a problem I need to solve for them. How do I show them that not only can I solve it, but I'm the best person to solve it? I'm the person they need. Nobody else will come close to what I can offer."

We're really big on creating an emotional connection, so the consultation is fun and friendly.

Peter: Say someone watching this is where you were a year and a half ago. They're booking 10 or 12 weddings a year, they want to scale, and they're thinking about joining us. What would you say to them?

Sara: Hands down, don't let your fears and the thoughts in your head, like "What if this doesn't work? What will I do?", stop you. Just do it. Even in the worst case, if it didn't work, which it will, you'll learn so much about sales and marketing that it's literally like a college education.

Be prepared to work hard. But in less than two years, I'm in a place where I get up every morning, walk my dogs, have coffee, do my devotions, and spend time with my kids and my husband.