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Hello, and welcome back to the Often Ambitious podcast. I've been gone for two months, so I'm gonna reintroduce myself. Hi, I'm Allure Rochelle, and we're here. It's been two months. I have had to take a surprise medical leave for about a month and a half, and it has been a whirlwind of life that is life-ing. There's no other way to explain it. One minute you're going to the doctor's, the next minute you have emergency surgery, and your doctor's like, "You're done. Take a break." Now, me personally, I don't think I've ever taken a leave this long other than when I had maternity leave, but Even then, I had episodes scheduled probably up until, if not, at the mark of when my son was born, and then I would record episodes when he was asleep. So that was 2021, a year after I started this podcast to begin with. And it has gone through many iterations and name changes, but here we are. Welcome back to the podcast, myself. I am here, I'm alive, and I find myself so very thankful for the kind of business that I had built because it really supported me in an emergency. And I don't wanna make this a teaching moment 'cause it feels lame to do that, but because of my systems, because things were scheduled, because I had a little mini team, everything worked out We had kicked off the in-demand challenge. All the prompts were scheduled up until Even messages were scheduled in Slack, and so we didn't necessarily miss a beat, and I'm so very thankful for that My co-coach Julia was doing incredible with the portfolio reviews and the luxury wedding calls, and then by the time that my leave was over, it was time for me to get on a call and say, "Hello, everyone. I'm back." So in my business, because of the way things were already built, the foundation was already so strong, an emergency like that could happen, and there were no hiccups. If anything, I was just really bored. Really bored. And I remember saying... And maybe this whole thing is my fault. I remember saying, "Man, I cannot stand it when people say, 'I'm so bored.' I'm never bored. I haven't been bored in 15 years." And at the 15-year mark, your girl was bored. Bored for a month to two months, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to rest. I know how to rest on vacation. I know how to rest when there is a start date and a end date, right? But when you're forced to not do anything, and you're always on the go, making plans, scheduling, doing a call, having a team meeting, and all of a sudden it's like you can't do any of those things because you're tired, and you're forced to rest in the house all the time. It was to the point where the house was so clean, the laundry was so done. What do I do now? I can only cook so many meals. But all that to say That is why I'm so thankful that I literally build my business so I can be often ambitious, but not always ambitious And I have learned even more how to slow down. I have adopted another hobby. So what do I do? I journal. Highly recommend journaling. If you don't know what to say, start off with three prompts that just ask you about yourself, about things you like and don't like, and where you see yourself going. And I'm pretty sure your mind is just gonna take it from there, and whoopsie-daisies, you accidentally journaled five pages, and now everything is so crystal clear. Now, the new thing I'm taking up is scrapbooking. I actually used to scrapbook in the early 2000s, because back in my day, we had digital cameras. The ones... Yeah, the ones that are trending right now, yeah, that was my only option. I remember saving up my senior open house money to buy a digital camera so I could take pictures and print them. And before that was the Fujifilm green one-time use camera. My mom would scrapbook with her friends, and I found myself scrapbooking as well. I still have that scrapbook from when I was, like, 14, and so thankful that I did that. And now I'm doing it again, and I did the cute little fancy cushioned binder DIY Where you go to Joann's, and you get the polyfill, and then you glue it to some fabric. And it just looks really nice. So I did that for my daughter and my son. And I'm just gonna start printing all of the photos off of my phone. So if you don't have a hobby, please get one. Because you wanna be able to do something else other than work. And my husband has said this p- Back when I was deep in burnout and undercharged in the early wedding photographer days. He's like, "You need a hobby. You need something else to do other than work." And I'm like, "You're just saying that because you're not busy." you know what? Circle, full circle, being busy is not a badge of honor. Nobody cares how busy you are, and it only affects you. So lots of ahas and just coming around the mountain here for me. But yes, I have organized all of their little artwork into those tubs. I, the things that I've done, y'all. I've done so much. I'm about to paint my master bathroom finally. And I think I just wanna stick with earthy tones. I wanna come to my house and feel like I can just breathe, and earthy tones do that for me. I'm thinking about getting more organized. It's time to get rid of my kids' clothes that don't fit and that are horribly stained. It's about that time. Yep, we're just gonna start throwing stuff away, and throwing away toys. Throwing stuff away and donating it, especially toys that they don't play with anymore, things that are just taking up space. instead of spring cleaning, I'm like fall cleaning. I think it's because they're back to school. Okay, that being said, that is a summary of what I have been doing. Hobbies, being bored for the first time in a million years, and resting, and also very thankful for the systems that I have created. Very thankful for that. Which leads me to the second part of this episode Wedding Atelier I am now accepting private clients. Yes. I have never done one-on-one coaching. I always did one-on-one intensives. We did a big, deep dive, 60 minute, 90 minute, and then you were off to the races, but then we... I never knew what happened to you guys. We would go through a mentorship, and it was like, "See you later. Send me a DM when you remember me." and I've had so much time on my hands to really brainstorm something that really fits my life and flexibility, but also busy photographers without them feeling guilty for not getting back to me all the time. I have created the best one-on-one coaching offer that I could ever imagine for myself and my business. It's called Private Atelier. So in Private Atelier, imagine Alora in your pocket. If you are struggling with mindset stuff, we will uncover that. If you feel like your brand isn't really showing who you are, and you feel like you're not being seen, you feel like you're getting couples that aren't a great fit, that's a brand issue, right? And so we'll tackle that issue, break it down one by one, and we'll just talk it out. One thing about me, I love a voice DM. If it's a five to seven-minute audio, it's like receiving an Amazon package for me. I don't know. I literally will perk up my phone, press play, and sit there like I'm listening to a podcast. I love a voice DM. And so what we're gonna do is like deep dive your business and see what needs fixing, what's not working. But also, I feel like this is the missing piece of mindset. We do offer mindset support inside of Wedding Atelier, but not one-on-one, right? I have a bunch of trainings that break down all of the mindsets of raising your prices, every single one, and all of the mindsets of detaching from the, being an artist and being a CEO. All those things are so important. But then there comes the mindset of "What should I be doing right now?" And that is the CEO mindset, because as a CEO, you have to be the visionary, and you have to call the shots, and you have to have a plan. But if you're calling the shots and you don't have a plan, and you're feeling insecure that's where you need the one-on-one support. And sometimes people will come to me and say, "Oh, I feel like I need this, and that." And then I say, "Okay. Explain it to me. What are you struggling with right now in your business?" They talk it out, and I'm like, "That's not the problem. This is the problem. It's not that you need to rebrand right now. It's that you don't know what your brand is. You've outgrown your brand." And that is a delicious problem I love to solve. You know me, I'm a brand girly, so let's go deep dive into your deepest, darkest self and uncover what has changed and how we can make sure that your brand shows that visually. Because as photographers, everything we do is visual. Everything we do, from our work to the way we present ourself, the way we talk about ourself, even our brand images represent us. And that leads to, of course, eventually a rebrand. But first, you have to build the foundation for that rebrand, and that's why, as a recovering serial rebrander myself, we rebrand, and we didn't do the work first, so we're gonna have to eventually do it again, right? The designer's just listening to what you're saying that you want, But as a CEO, you need to inherently know that you're not just wearing somebody else's shoes or copying a different trend. This is ultimately The strategy of your business, and then the designer's able to execute that way, which is why the Rebrand Studio inside of Wedding Atelier has launched four brands, and we're actually about to onboard a fifth brand, all of that this year, which is insane. I never thought that I was gonna have an agency, but here we are. I am wearing many hats, and I love the hats that I'm wearing. Love it. So the really cool thing about these rebrands is that Every single one of them is different. Every single one of them has a founder story, and then a story that sets them apart as the artist, and then also a story of how they became a photographer, but also when they fell in love with photography itself. Which eventually helps them uncover their specific style of photography that isn't like everyone else's. Because you don't have to just pick one style, you can have a bunch of different styles that merge together that ultimately feel like you. watching this evolution of these photographers that I've had in Wedding Atelier, and then eventually become Rebrand Studio clients, and they also become one-on-one clients, has just been so fun to be able to see what they can accomplish in a year with us, if they decide to renew, and then also what they can accomplish even faster when we work together one-on-one in Private Atelier. What Private Atelier is, it is 12 weeks with me, voice DM coaching. Okay? I'm gonna send a pinned message, "Hey, this is what we're working on. answer these questions for me? This is the day that one-on-one coaching begins, and then I'm gonna send you a calendar invite of when one-on-one coaching ends, whether you'd like to renew or if you'd like to onboard in the other offers that we have." And so I just, I don't know. I love it. I love it. I love my job. That takes us to the third part of this episode, and that is Wedding Atelier is changing. Yeah, it's about that time. She's about to be five years old next year, 2027. Wedding Atelier, previously Wedding CEO, is going to be five years old. She's a big girl. I can't even, ugh, I can't even believe it, and it makes sense because my son is five. I think he just turned one when Wedding CEO launched, so he's gonna be six next year. Crazy. And I have gone through the data. I have talked with my co-coach. We have gone back and forth, two-hour calls, constant voice DMs, trying to figure out how we can make this better and make the transformations tighter and tighter. And if you guessed it, you probably did, we're gonna be changing the program to a cohort-based style. I feel like I talked about this in my Instagram stories, but y'all, I have been in my fall baking era and cooking era, so I might say something about Wedding Atelier and then go back to cooking something. But yes, we are changing the model. It's gonna be a six-month cohort. And my coach gave me advice that she wanted it even shorter. She wanted it 12 weeks. So we'll try it at six months, and if you guys are like, "We don't even need the six months," that's fine. Whatever. If you don't need the support you do you, okay? But we're gonna break it down like this. It'll be phase one, you will get the 12-week cohort. Phase two will just be another 12 weeks of support. So essentially, you're gonna come in, and you're gonna get a one-on-one intensive with me if you join the waitlist and get all the goodies and the discounted price. And the last time we're selling it at 12 months. Join the waitlist now if you wanna lock that in, but we will be launching it in 2027 at the six-month cohort. So there's a lot of information. Feel free to listen to this episode twice, and I am talking really fast. So join the waitlist. We're gonna do a side quest. If you want to join Wedding Atelier before we shorten the program and raise the price, join the waitlist. We're opening the doors in November, just in time for things to slow down, and you can lock in 12 months, where you can basically go through the cohort twice for the low price. What? Why am I always doing these things? I don't know. I get in trouble a lot. My coaches are always like, "Why are you doing things so cheap?" I don't know. I just like to give people the opportunity, and I'm always thankful for people that are in my world, on my wait list, listening to my podcast. It's gotta count for something, right? Back to the cohort. It'll be 12 weeks of the intensive, which means we're all gonna be at the same place at the same time, and we're gonna have one week. You're going to do the homework assignments, and they will have due dates. You're gonna be posting your homework inside of Circle, and you're gonna be submitting everything for review to the coaches, and we're gonna hop on a call and talk about Talk out your questions, walk through ways that we can elevate, walk through ways that we can fix things, but you're gonna be going through this in the order of the program. No student left behind. And I think it's important to do this because here in the Midwest, and please DM me if this is completely different for you, but slow season is in winter, spring. And then once summer, fall hits, it's an absolute insanity. Absolute insanity. And I don't wanna force you guys to have to focus when you have a huge queue of 30 weddings to edit, and we will help you with finding an outsourcer, by the way, because been there, done that, had the headaches, bought the blue light glasses. Doesn't change a thing. We will give you support, we will give you honest feedback, and we have some goodies in store for you that we're talking out on the back end right now, too. But I just wanted you to be aware that Wedding Atelier is changing, and it's going to be really tight, but we're all gonna be in this together. I love a cohort style. I love a challenge. I love everybody being in the same place. versus investing in a program and being like, "See you guys after wedding season's over." I want you guys to get the result. I know things are busy. I know the world has changed since 2020, and so I want Wedding Atelier to be that answer for you. So that is gonna be a really big change with Wedding Atelier Now, we are adding some really fun things. I'm just gonna tease about them a little bit, but there are gonna be milestones in the program that are gonna keep you going. And when you achieve them, I have some prizes that I am designing right now that I think you're gonna like. And so yeah, A lot of things going on. So the two things that you probably wanna do is if you wanna work with me one-on-one, you're like, "Allura, I have mindset stuff. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where I'm going. Help. I'm overwhelmed And I'm busy. I need direction on my own time. You can always respond whenever you can. I will respond whenever I can. I usually like to answer two to three questions a day, and then I'll have you sit on it, and then we'll talk about it the next day and see how you feel, 'cause you wanna have room to breathe, right? So if you're like, "Yes, Private Tilly is for me," go ahead and fill out the application form in the show notes. Would love to hear from you and work with you, and I will send you a DM to your Instagram so that we can chat it out and see if it's the right fit for you. I actually have five spots available, and then two of them have booked, so now I have three slots available. And then once those three spots are filled, the price is gonna go up to the regular price. Okay? So if you're like, Allora, I need this now," or things are slowing down, you get 12 weeks. Okay, so I just looked it up. If you join private atelier to work with me one-on-one, 12 weeks from today even is December 9th. So you're gonna get support from me in the middle of busy season slowing down, but also when it's slow and you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, what should I be doing during slow season?" So go ahead and apply. The link is in the show notes there. And then for Wedding Atelier, if you want to lock in the 12-month access, the price that it is right now, join that waitlist because the waitlist is gonna get access. I'm not gonna be launching this a whole lot publicly. The full launch will be in 2027, okay? So if you're on the waitlist, you're gonna get access the moment that the doors are open, and a couple of free bonuses and gifts Because you joined the wait list. There are always perks for being on the wait list. So I will be brainstorming some last chance end of the year bonuses to celebrate Wedding Atelier's fifth birthday in January, which is so crazy. And to wrap this all up, this is your reminder to check your business systems and foundations. Is your business life proof? Family emergency proof? Are all of your systems automated? Are your workflows automated? Are your clients getting consistent emails to let them know that you're still there and they didn't just pay a retainer and you said, "See you later," in a year or two? If you're not sure about any of those answers, then we definitely need to chat. You can Send me a DM if you don't know which offer is best, and I can point you in the right direction. It feels so good to be back, and I'm just so thankful that you guys are here, subscribed to this podcast, listening to this episode. I hope you have an amazing week, an amazing day, and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.