I'm Done Squeezing Your Business Into Software That Wasn't Built for You

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Hey, y'all.

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Welcome back.

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Today's episode is gonna

be short and sweet.

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Think about it as a combination of behind

the scenes and also building in public.

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Because I feel like in the last two

weeks, maybe the last two months if

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I'm being really honest, I have made

some huge pivots in the way that I

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am working with my clients and what

I want my business to look like going

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forward, and I have a lot of really

fun things planned on the horizon.

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Today's episode is just kind of,

I'm putting some of these things

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out into the world so that they're

not all living inside of my head.

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I've been doing the system side of my

business for a little over five and a

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half years, and it's only now that I

truly believe that, like, I know what I

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want to do in my business going forward

for the next five, possibly 10 years.

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And so I'm not gonna share all

of those plans with you today,

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but this is, like, the first

iteration of where I'm going next.

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Now, in the last five and a half

years, I feel like what I have

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offered you has changed, and it

didn't really change a lot in the

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first four years of me doing systems.

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But in the last year and a

half, like, my business has

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flipped completely upside down.

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I now have offers that didn't exist

before a year and a half ago, and these

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are the only things that I am really

focusing on now and going forward.

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And so there's just something

to be said for that.

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And I don't think that, like,

all of the things that I did in

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the past were a waste of time.

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I mean, I've genuinely helped hundreds

of photographers and creative service

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providers to build systems that saved

them real hours and real stress inside

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of their business, and I am proud of

what, you know, I created with them,

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but I am making, like, some pretty

big moves to drastically change, like,

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the actual core offer that I have.

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Now, up until now, I have really

been focused on the tool, and

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more specifically, I've been

focused on my favorites, which

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are Dubsado and HoneyBook.

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I would help you map your client journey,

get excited about what was possible,

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and then we would spend the rest of

our time together bending your vision

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to work inside of software that I was

recommending to you, and I'm honestly

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done with that as of today going forward.

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And what's really made me have this

huge shift inside of my mind was

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building myself the tool of my dreams,

my business dreams, if you will.

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I kept running into the same

problem with my own clients.

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All of my tools, my templates,

my trainings, my feedback, my

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frameworks, everything was scattered.

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Nothing was in one place.

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And so I think all of you know by

now, during my birthday sabbatical,

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I built the Systems Professor app to

help me manage clients inside of the

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Experience Edit and Systems in Session.

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Now, I could never have imagined

that building this custom tool for

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myself was basically going to spark

the next iteration of my business.

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But it just…

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It cracked something open for me,

because I have jokingly said in the

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past that if I had, like, a coder, a

developer, someone that could help me

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take ideas out of my head and actually

put them out into the world, maybe

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that's the path that I would've taken.

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But unfortunately for me, my husband

is a biochemist, and so he is not

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capable of helping me do any of those

things, and all of my besties are

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photographers and photographer educators.

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But I think right now with the evolution

of AI, and more specifically vibe

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coding, that the world of opportunities

in terms of making the tools that

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truly make our business easier is

really open and available to everyone.

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And so now I am of the opinion, if you and

I can really think of what your customer

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journey truly needs to be in order for you

to deliver a five-star client experience,

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that is what I want you to have.

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I no longer want you to feel like you

have to compromise parts of that because

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the tools that are currently available

cannot fully help you realize your dream

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on how you want to work with your clients.

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I want to stop asking you to squeeze

your business into software that

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was not designed for how you work.

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And I'm really sorry that it took me,

like, five years to say this out loud.

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I mean, granted, I was not in a position

three years ago to build the software

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of my dreams or anything like that.

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But here's what this means

going forward and working with

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me inside of my offer suite.

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I want everyone to do the Experience Edit.

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Now, I will admit, it didn't

really seem like the Experience

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Edit was gonna work out.

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It started as that client communication

course that I felt like everybody needed.

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And to me, that was like

the first pivot that I made.

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Because up until I created Email Like You

Mean It, I was 100% focused on workflows.

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I thought workflows could solve all

of your problems in your business.

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You know, you're spending

too much time doing this.

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Let's just automate it

inside of a workflow.

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That was where I thought most

of you were dropping the ball.

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You're doing things manually off of, you

know, checklists and the whole nine yards,

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and I thought to myself, "If I could just

give you some workflows to help you manage

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it, your business would run better."

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And then I admitted in a very

public way that most of you

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weren't ready for workflows.

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Most of you guys needed to sit down in

a corner with a piece of paper and a

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pen and figure out what it was that you

wanted to do with your clients first.

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And then you needed to write the

client communication that guided it.

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But where I went wrong in creating the

course Email Like You Mean It was that

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I was 100% focused on the communication.

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Because that is what my clients

were telling me at that time.

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All of the people that I worked with

in Done For You were all really excited

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about the emails that I wrote them and

what a difference it made when they

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were communicating with their clients.

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But again, I thought the emails were what

was giving them that, when in reality, it

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was one more step backwards to actually

look at the client journey that we had

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planned that the emails were guiding.

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So going forward, Experience Edit is

going to be my forward-facing offer.

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I want everyone to do it with me.

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What we do is we sit down and

we look at your offer first.

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Now, this is new.

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You know, I haven't really talked about

this outside of the Order of Operations

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episode that I published a few weeks ago.

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But everyone is going to get an

offer review from me, and that is

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because I still believe that we cannot

build systems around a shitty offer.

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I want to make sure that you guys have

really looked at these offers that you

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are selling, that you are marketing,

to make sure that they are profitable,

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sustainable, and enjoyable to deliver.

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Now, once we've looked at your offer

and you've gotten the seal of approval,

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you've gotten a green light, the next

step inside of Experience Edit is

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for us to map your client journey.

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And this is an absolute

non-negotiable for me.

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This is the thing that gets you the

business that you've dreamed of.

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This is the thing that makes

workflows and automations possible.

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And so I want us to get together.

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I want us to map out this client journey

so that we know every single milestone

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and every single touch point that you

are going to have with your clients.

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Then we are gonna talk about tools.

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Now, that is the first part, though, okay?

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Experience Edit is all about

reviewing your offer and

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mapping your client journey.

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And after the Experience Edit, I will

still offer you the opportunity to

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work with me one-on-one to implement

this new five-star client experience

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into the tool of your choice, whether

that is an existing tool that you

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brought with you, like Dubsado,

HoneyBook, 17hats, VSCO, Sprout Studio,

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Or if building you something

custom is where we need to go so

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that you can manage your clients

and deliver the client experience

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exactly as you have designed it.

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Because that's what I did with

the Systems Professor app.

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Okay, so is every person

going to need a custom tool?

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No, absolutely not.

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But for those of you that are running

a business like me, where you haven't

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quite found the tool that allows you

to do all of the things that you do

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with your clients in the most efficient

way, that is probably gonna be a

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conversation that we need to have.

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And so I wanna say, I would

love to have you come and join

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me for an Experience Edit.

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I think it is the best thing that

you could do for your business.

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You can go to coliejames.com/experience.

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Right now, I am booking solo sprints,

and what that looks like is you and me

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one-on-one to do these things together.

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Now, I am going to have one more

group sprint before the end of

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2026, and I will be opening up

registration for that next month.

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So you can do a solo sprint or you can

do a group sprint, but going forward,

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everyone that works with me is going

to start with an Experience Edit.

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And if you wanna hear more about

me building custom tools and

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exactly what I did to build the

Systems Professor app, stay tuned.

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Tomorrow's episode is with Kara, my blog

writer, who has been inside the Systems

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Professor app, and she is going to be

interviewing me about how I created it and

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what that means for you if you decide that

you need a custom tool for your business.

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All right.

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That's it for this episode.

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See you next time.