Balancing Business & Boundaries: Time Management Tips with Sarah Roshan
Feeling overwhelmed with everything on your plate? Sarah Roshan shares how surviving cancer, running a business, and raising a family taught her the power of systems, boundaries, and intentional time management.
As a wedding pro, there’s no shortage of things competing for my attention—emails, client meetings, family time, editing, travel, and the list goes on. That’s why I invited my friend Sarah Roshan to talk about something we all need help with: time management. Sarah’s not only an incredible wedding photographer—she also runs the Emerge Event Collective and somehow still manages to ski with her family on Mondays. If you’ve ever wondered how someone “does it all,” this episode is for you.
Sarah opens up about how a cancer diagnosis forced her to re-evaluate how she was spending her time—and how burnout nearly took her out of the game entirely. She shares how she rebuilt her business with systems, automation, and solid boundaries, and how that has helped her take better care of herself and her family without compromising her business growth.
We also dive into the real-life messiness of juggling work and parenting. From outsourcing editing to her go-to time-blocking techniques, Sarah gets honest about what works (and what doesn’t) when you’re trying to keep multiple plates spinning. Spoiler: it’s not about being perfect—it’s about planning ahead, forgiving yourself, and making room for life.
We even talk tech! Sarah shares how she uses tools like ChatGPT to save time and how she prioritizes systems that give her more mental space. If you’re constantly asking “How do they manage it all?” this conversation pulls back the curtain.
And yes—if you’re feeling stretched thin, this episode is your permission slip to reset and create better systems for your sanity.
If this episode gave you a new perspective on time management or made you rethink how you’re spending your hours, I’d love to hear from you! Please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a fellow wedding pro, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a future episode. Your feedback keeps this podcast going strong!
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Transcript
Kevin Dennis (0:0.654)
Alright folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. I'm here with the one and only and amazing Sarah Rashawn. So I got the pleasure of knowing Sarah through WIPA. We were both on the board together back in our many, many, many moons ago. We won't tell anybody how old we are, right Sarah?
Sarah Roshan (0:18.946)
Yeah, yeah, we're going to keep that a secret.
Kevin Dennis (0:21.922)
I think that's good. But Sarah is here today to talk to us about time management, which I think is something that we all 100 % struggle with in the event industry. Maybe the planners not so much, the rest of us. The rest of us creators, think, struggle with time management a lot. So Sarah, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today?
Sarah Roshan (0:45.376)
working group in Denver since:And we went from about 30 people using our space. had about 130 members, 30 people using our space. And after the pandemic, we had three people that were using our space. So, you my business had changed a lot over that time as well. And so we decided to rebrand in 22 to Emerge Event Collective. And now we are focused on the luxury and high-end market of the event industry. So we have wedding and event.
Kevin Dennis (1:21.578)
Hahaha!
Sarah Roshan (1:38.038)
professionals. We have some corporate BMCs and all sorts of different kind of event people. And we're growing a network of people across the country. So super excited for the growth that we've had and me like everybody else trying to juggle my time between both of those.
Kevin Dennis (1:58.606)
And you do it so well, I'll be honest with you. And I don't know the behind the scenes, Sarah, but on the outside, it looks like you are a well-oiled machine. So that's why I think I'm excited to talk to you about your time management today, because you're also a mom. You forgot that part too, and a wife. So you got a lot of things to juggle over there,
Sarah Roshan (2:19.308)
Yep, yep. I've been married. It'll be 20 years this year. He's still sticking around.
Kevin Dennis (2:23.490)
That's exciting. He hasn't ran yet. So all right. So we're going to jump into time management, I think it goes back. I think you could tell us a couple of your stories where it really, I think your time management came back. And as I was reading all of this, I forgot. I don't know why. It just was something that happened a long time ago, like when you broke your back and had to be airlifted and all that.
Sarah Roshan (2:28.298)
He doesn't read yet.
Kevin Dennis (2:52.822)
Wonderful thing and but your business still continued. So give us the backstory and then we'll then we'll jump off.
Sarah Roshan (2:58.328)
Well.
Sarah Roshan (3:1.592)
Well, I think like our like my first big test ultimately was when I got diagnosed with cancer. So, you know, I, when I got diagnosed with cancer, my biggest fear was that my clients were going to find out and freak out that I wasn't going to be at their wedding. And so that was like my biggest thing is like, how do I manage this treatment and then also caring for myself and manage my client expectations. But I also realized at that point that I was
Kevin Dennis (3:15.018)
Oh.
Sarah Roshan (3:29.262)
trying to do too many things, right? Like I had burned out and I don't want to say like the cause of cancer is XYZ, because like who the hell knows what the cause of cancer is. But I felt like I wasn't taking care of my body. I wasn't taking care of my family. I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't doing any of the things that I needed to do. And so it was sort of like this wake up call. Not only did I have to now balance the treatment, but I also was like, well, we can't go back to that. You know, we can't go back to like
Kevin Dennis (3:31.438)
Hmm.
Sarah Roshan (3:57.332)
burning both ends, know, that that graphic we've all seen that's like, currently in my life, burning both ends and your whole like sticks on fire. So, you know, like part of that is like, after that, I wanted to make sure that I didn't burn out, I was taking care of my body that I was working out. And, and honestly, like I go, I have been flow like everybody else, right? Like, there's times that I do really well with time management, and there's times that I still suck at it. So, you know, it's always a constant learning process. But that was like,
Kevin Dennis (3:59.821)
Yep.
Kevin Dennis (4:22.796)
Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (4:26.478)
evin said, I broke my back in:Kevin Dennis (4:34.886)
Oh, yeah.
Kevin Dennis (4:54.594)
The world shut down. Oh.
Sarah Roshan (4:54.702)
I still had to deal with all of these client issues, like people getting canceled and stuff, and I was still in the middle of how to back brace all of the things. So those are kind of like the catalyst things that I think are good reminders of when shit hits the band, you have the systems in place to make sure that you manage stuff well, but also just balancing and setting boundaries with clients and things like that.
Kevin Dennis (5:21.868)
Yeah, I think it's important. All right, so we're going to go jump right into it. So tell us a little bit about your time management and why do you think it's important and get us to a starting point where we could even start thinking about time management.
Sarah Roshan (5:37.784)
So I think there's a couple of things that have really helped me with time management and blocking off time on my calendar is like really the biggest thing is, hey, setting those boundaries of like, I'm not gonna take any appointments on Mondays. I'm not gonna take any appointments after a certain time on days, making sure that if you're setting time.
Kevin Dennis (5:40.716)
you
Kevin Dennis (5:48.045)
Mmm.
Sarah Roshan (6:3.958)
aside for clients, which we all know in the event industry, especially in the wedding industry, like people are home on the afternoons and evenings and on the weekends and making sure that they don't take up all of that time with my family. And then I make sure and start my calendar a little bit later in the day so I can still get a workout. And ideally, you know, the times that I fail generally are when I'm traveling, but
you know, if I'm at home and in my routine, then at least I have that time box off and I can make sure that I'm taking care of myself. And then I work really hard to make sure that I take Sunday Mondays off with my family. Thankfully, my kids are off on Mondays, so that works really well for my lifestyle. Yeah, it's super helpful. I know that that is not reality for 99 % of you, but.
Kevin Dennis (6:48.035)
Oh, wow.
Kevin Dennis (6:55.786)
Yes.
Sarah Roshan (6:56.138)
My kids are off school on Mondays and we picked a school district, thankfully, that had that schedule. And so I work Saturdays and then, you know, usually off Sunday, Monday, and then by Tuesday, it gets a little chaotic. I try to block off that first half of my day to take care of emails. And I don't take any appointments until later on Tuesday so that I can catch up on all of the things from the weekend and from Sunday, Monday. There are occasions where I will pop in and I'll do emails.
I try to schedule them so that they go out Tuesday morning. So if you guys have an email scheduler, that's always really helpful because then your clients don't expect you to respond on a Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
Kevin Dennis (7:34.039)
Mmm.
Kevin Dennis (7:40.376)
Do you use the Gmail suite for that? Because a lot of people I know.
Sarah Roshan (7:44.171)
Um, I actually use Apple now, like Apple Mail has it, but I used to use Gmail. I don't know. For some reason I like the interface of Apple better. Um, but I know like.
Kevin Dennis (7:48.300)
Okay. Okay.
I'm the only one left in my office that still uses the Apple Mail. Everyone is switched to just using the Gmail. Because even though we have like Kevin at Winnie and Ikea, Kevin at Fantasy Sound, it's all powered by Gmail. anyway, but scheduling is key.
Sarah Roshan (8:5.964)
Yeah, no, I'm with you. don't know, for some reason I visually like the system here and I love the Apple Mail that lets me reschedule or remind now, which all the updates have now caught up to Google, thankfully. But back when it didn't, I would also schedule emails. My CRM also has the ability to schedule emails, which is nice.
Kevin Dennis (8:21.142)
Yeah, it really has.
Kevin Dennis (8:31.703)
What CRM are you using just because someone's going to ask in the notes?
Sarah Roshan (8:34.734)
Oh, remember, remember when we were talking about how old we were? I still use shoot. Like CRM is very old. It's called shoot Q. And it's like literally from like, I'm like an OG at this point. So yeah, you still use shoot Q and it works great for us. And we put all of our workflow into it. So for photo stuff, we we've, you know, everything from like,
Kevin Dennis (8:38.284)
Yeah, your CRM is old.
Kevin Dennis (8:45.822)
Oh yeah, okay.
Sarah Roshan (9:1.698)
client welcome emails to like any sort of little thing has that in there, but it also takes care of our invoicing and contracts and all the things. And we haven't really found a reason to leave. So that's what we use and then stick into it.
Kevin Dennis (9:17.120)
No, don't think there's a, I'll be honest with you, if it works for you, why switch, right? You know, it's just like, if you have a system that works for you, you need to use it. It always makes me laugh when people are constantly running to the next new shiny object. So, yeah.
Sarah Roshan (9:32.490)
No. I think the other thing in terms of time management is really just making sure that you have automations, that you have processes down. You know, my good friend, Dana Calvo, who I think you know her as well. She says if you have to do the same thing more than two or three times, then you need to write a process for it, write an automation or an SOP for it. And so trying to make sure that you have a lot of processes and workflow processes and
Kevin Dennis (9:45.794)
Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (10:1.422)
So you have to answer less questions. So you have automatic emails that go out to your clients so that you don't have to spend that time answering an email because they're gonna ask you when your images are coming. Do you know, you've already sent an email and tried to prep them for it. We send out a welcome email that explains the whole process. Then we send them reminders up until their wedding date. You know, a lot of that upfront work ultimately has saved us on the back end and saves us a lot of time. And people often ask me like, how are you doing it all?
I don't even know how you do it all. I'm like, well, first of all, have a lot of help. I have to do a lot of things. But I also have a lot of automations and a lot of processes that streamline a lot of it.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:All right, I want to jump into time blocking because it's something that people, I think, talk about but don't live up to it. I think you also kind of blended time blocking with boundaries. So tell me why you think that's important or why you think that's going to make people more productive.
Sarah Roshan (:I mean.
Sarah Roshan (11:3.462)
I think people forget that like switching tasks, ultimately, you lose time in doing that, but also setting boundaries with clients, I think is one of the harder things that people, well, people have a harder time doing in our industry, right? I will answer a text usually on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but it's like, hey, I'm out on a wedding.
Can you email me this and I'll answer you Tuesday when I'm back in office? We try really hard to make it from the beginning in that welcome email, like, hey, we're usually out Friday, Saturdays at weddings during wedding season, and we take Sunday, Mondays off with our family. If you have questions during that day, it's gonna take us longer. So we are setting up the pretense for that and setting up that boundary from the very beginning so that hopefully.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Sarah Roshan (:there's less questions when we go, hey, just a reminder, we're off Sunday, Monday, we'll get to you on Tuesday. If it's urgent, shoot me a text or something, but like 99 % of what we do is not urgent, right? Like at the end of the day, it's not an emergency unless it's like the week of their wedding and something happens. It's not an emergency and it's within our processes.
We want to be responsive and deliver a really high quality of service without breaking our boundaries and having people calling and texting us at all hours of the night.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Now, was that hard for you to do when you initially did that? Or did you feel like clients would not be receptive to it?
Sarah Roshan (:Um, no, think, um, I've always been pretty good about like setting that boundary once I did it, um, and figured out that it actually like allows you a lot of freedom. I like literally today's Tuesday, right? I just went skiing with my family yesterday and the day before, and, um, I did answer a couple emails that evening. Uh, but in general, like everything else that went out this morning, I scheduled.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (13:8.494)
the week before so that I wouldn't have to stress over the weekend, right? Like, so it's a lot of some of its planning, some of its time blocking, you know, like, hey, on Tuesday, I'm going to do an hour for social media. I'm going to do three hours for editing and processing. On Wednesday, I'm going to work for like work on my emerge stuff. And there's certainly like, I get so many emails a day. don't know. People like want to die how many emails I get a day. But, you know, sometimes it's just like,
hey, that email can wait and I just like set a reminder and send it back to myself when it's time blocked for me to do it. So I don't feel so overwhelmed too.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Oh, I love that. Because then that probably is kind of like releases the pressure of knowing that it's in your inbox or that burning. I don't know. It was it took so we kind of did something similar. So we don't meet with clients on Monday or Tuesdays. We'll meet with them Monday through. And we have a couple of our staff that will meet with people on Saturdays, but they're the ones that don't actually work events. But to get to that point was so I was afraid are people not going to like us or people, you know, are they going to go to the other company?
But I found it was very rewarding because people really respect the boundaries because they want us fresh. They want us at our best on wedding day. Or they don't want us responding to emails or text messages to another client while we're working for them. I think that, yeah. Because I got questioned by a bride one time. Well, what if I need to get ahold of you on Saturday? I go, well, what if I'm working your wedding day? And I kind of turned it back on her. And then she understood.
Sarah Roshan (:Right.
Kevin Dennis (:and made it feel better for her.
Sarah Roshan (:Right.
Yeah, I mean, we all want our clients to feel like they're the only ones, but they have to know that also they're not the only ones at some point. Like they have to know that we're, we're working on what we're working on. and, um, yeah, I, I, I really like the, like, I know that in Google has, has the boomerang. Like I, I get really overwhelmed very easily with my inbox. Um, there's like always a thousand things to do in there. So I, I use that reminder, like the follow-up thing is really great now that
Apple has that, but like boomerang is really great in Gmail for like, hey, it's gonna take me 10 minutes right now, but realistically, I need to get all of the urgent stuff out of my inbox for the hour and then everything else is time blocked into like, okay, on Wednesday we're working on Emerge stuff and Emerge emails and catching up on that stuff. And on Tuesday, I'm gonna be editing so that my clients aren't disappointed because I'm working on Emerge stuff instead of editing their wedding.
Um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's boundaries with yourself too, right? Like you're your own best keeper of your boundaries and, and you can work until midnight if you want to. Um, or you can work until five and then check your computer off. then, you know, there's, there's always that, like, that, um, you know, what happens when you like procrastinate something and then you have to get it done by five o'clock and you're like way more efficient at it then becomes like your efficiency.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:of doing is like I have from one to three o'clock to get all of these things done. And it like makes you a little bit more efficient even within your own self, I guess.
Kevin Dennis (:So what happens, okay, so we get, you said one to three, we get the three and not everything's done. What does Sarah do?
Sarah Roshan (:Oh, I mean, have full on panic attacks now. Um, you know, like a lot of times I will just remind myself that I try to leave myself like an hour to just like buffer every day to make sure that I like, if I don't finish it today, then it goes to that buffer area for tomorrow. Um, and I, kind of, yeah, it's like, instead of time blocking yourself, let's say you're, you're going to work an eight hour day. To be fair, I rarely work an eight hour day, but
Kevin Dennis (:Okay.
Kevin Dennis (:Oh, I like the buffer.
Sarah Roshan (17:3.022)
I usually work longer because I try to work four hours, I'm sorry, four days instead of five. And then of course, if I'm out shooting, that time gets taken away from those four days. instead of blocking out all eight hours, leave yourself like an hour of like extra shit, Like extra shit that I didn't get done yesterday or extra shit that I didn't anticipate that I had to take care of today so that you have.
Kevin Dennis (:No.
Sarah Roshan (:an hour in your day and that happens to me a lot. know, like I don't get through everything, but I feel like it makes you a lot more efficient at the end of the day to like time block is like I have until three o'clock to get this wedding done or you know that I'm a photographer so that's not going to apply to everybody or like the timeline that I have to get done or you know this order or this invoice or you know a lot of times I will block out four hours to do all of our events.
stuff for emergency like a lot of times it's just it's not going to get done in that amount of time you're a little overloaded. So, you know, you're always going to have to like add on to your day at some point but trying to manage that and kids and all the things that you have to manage in real life. It helps to kind of do that.
Kevin Dennis (18:7.822)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:I don't know if you remember Britt Bertino, but she was a past WIPA president. so she was speaking at, I forget what conference it was at. one of the things she was kind of talking a little bit about time management and everyone was asking her how she got stuff done. The one thing she did is she had three different playlists that she had music. And so for her, she had a 30 minute, a 45 and an hour playlist. if she didn't, know, so she would
allowed herself a certain amount of time and if she didn't get it done then it got scheduled a different time and she kept moving forward so that way she didn't focus on one thing she was focusing on many things so kind of what you mentioned reminding me of that story because it's you know because then you have that what did you call it oh shit moment or what or shit block or whatever you call that
Sarah Roshan (19:7.739)
Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's the other shit that you have to do, like all the shit that you couldn't get done or like, yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah, yeah. So then, so how often then are you looking at your schedule? And are you like, seven days out? Are we 14 days out to where you're blocking? How far out ahead do you go to block?
Sarah Roshan (:I mean, we take appointments pretty far out, but in terms of like my day, I usually do like a day or two in advance because I mean, there are certain days where like it's consistent, but it also varies depending on how much I'm traveling. And I'm traveling a lot right now for Emerge. You know, like this week I wasn't, I was home and last week I was home, but like the three weeks before that I was in.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:two different cities in the same week and the same thing for next week. I'm going to Florida and then I'm going to New York City and then I have like four weeks in a row where I'm going somewhere. so, you know, if for some reason I'm doing an event that day, either move it to another day of that week. So make sure that I block out that time or I look at the week ahead and sometimes go, okay, well, Monday is my day off. And sometimes
it works out. So I will take client calls on Monday, but I'm going to take like another four hours off on Friday or something where like, I don't have a wedding on Saturday. So I'm going to I'm going to block out, you know, Saturday instead, just depending on my schedule and where I feel like I might need to schedule client meetings and stuff. So it's always variable Sunday, Monday are like my days, but you know,
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:things happen and things move around and so you kind of have to shift but at any time I shift something I always adjust it on the other end.
Kevin Dennis (:It's kind of like if you get if you want to take that extra time, you got to you got to get you got to get it somewhere else. You know, you got to get that time back somewhere else. So how do you handle? Yeah, I like that, though, I like because I mean, like I coach Little League Baseball and it's like if I could quit my job and coach Little League Baseball and make the amount of money that I make now, I would I would do that in a heartbeat because I just it's so rewarding and I love it so much. But because of it, I'm like having to leave, you know, like yesterday I had.
Sarah Roshan (21:1.622)
Yeah, so I always try to get that time back.
Kevin Dennis (:We had a game at 430. I had to be out in the fields at 320 to start getting everything. So I'm constantly like, all right, I will come in and work on a Monday when I normally don't work because I have been taking away so much time. And it's very similar. It sounds like what you do as well.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah, it's like a hard and fast rule. Like that's the general rule is Sunday, Monday as we go out. But like in the off season, a lot of times I have Saturdays off and I'm like going to my kids basketball or my kids soccer or whatever it is. Like if I don't have a wedding on that day, I can rotate those days out essentially and like still work the same amount of days. And I just try to do a trade, right? Like I try to like, if I'm gonna work on Monday, then I'm not gonna work on Saturday or you know, all the things.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (22:7.296)
Yeah. Just curious because you've set the boundaries within your clients, but then you're breaking the boundaries. How do you navigate that with them?
Sarah Roshan (:I mean, I tell them as they hate, usually I don't take phone calls on Monday, but since I'm going to be out of town this week, I'm happy to take it so that they know it's an exception. I think you have to set it up as an exception, not a rule.
Kevin Dennis (:Okay.
Fair enough. I like that. And then what about, you mentioned you travel. I travel not as much as you, but for a while there I was traveling a lot. But how do you find if you were at a hotel room with no one bothering you, are you more productive or how do you manage all that?
Sarah Roshan (:Um, I do seem to be pretty productive in a hotel room for whatever reason. Like I just look at my flight schedule and my event schedule and like still schedule things in between, like in the morning. Sometimes if I, if I feel like it's going to be overwhelming, I'll just block the whole time out and I'll end up just sitting there and working when I can. my favorite thing to do is to get to airports early and sit in the lounge and
Kevin Dennis (23:2.797)
Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:work. I don't know why what it is about the lounge, but I feel like I'm very productive in the lounge unless I'm drinking margaritas.
Kevin Dennis (:Sometimes that gets you little bit more creative that you get a little bit more productive. will say I love the lounge at your airport now because we're both, Sarah and I are both Southwest people and they have a great Centurion Lounge now in the Southwest Terminal at the Denver Airport.
Sarah Roshan (:It is full a lot of the times. The tip for that is to check in when like right before you get on the train. And usually by the time you get there, there's a spot for you because you can check in on the AMX app now.
Kevin Dennis (:I did not know that thank you because I saw it was full for the first time and I had it was on my layover on my way to be sage and I had like a three-hour layover in Denver and I was like oh I'm gonna go hang out at Centurion Lounge and I'll get a bunch of work done because the Wi-Fi is good and you know it's comfortable and quiet in there and anyway I was not successful so
Sarah Roshan (24:3.534)
Okay.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah. No. So if you check in, even when you land on your flight, just check in. You have 10 minutes to get there. 10 minutes, essentially, if there's a wait, then you don't have a problem. If there's not a wait, it'll just be like, ready for you and you're like fine. But I always check in like right when I get to the airport so that I can hopefully get into the lounge. It's only happened once where I had to wait extra.
Kevin Dennis (:Okay.
Kevin Dennis (:Pro tip, I'm gonna steal that from you. And it's on the Amex app? All right.
Sarah Roshan (:Yep. It's on the Amex app. Under the, you click through to the little, uh, where my languages are on the platinum card and it'll be like, would you like to pre-check in? Yes, I would.
Kevin Dennis (:I love it.
Kevin Dennis (:All right. Love it. Pro tip from Sarah, travels a lot. we'll have to, when we wrap up the app, we'll have to talk about the changes that are happening with Southwest, because everyone is blowing me up about it. Yeah, losing their minds. OK, we talked about automation, outsourcing, delegation. How do we navigate it? How have you used it in your business? You mentioned a little bit of it.
Sarah Roshan (:losing their minds. Yep, they're losing their minds.
Kevin Dennis (:Especially the outsourcing because like I have a couple of VA's that work for me. Do you have any VA's that work for you as well?
Sarah Roshan (:I have a husband that works for me. He kind of is my assistant. I literally will just support him emails and make him do a bunch of stuff. But also we have an editor that we contract out and they're actually in the Philippines, which is great because I can send him in a gallery. And then usually by the time I wake up the next day, it's done.
Kevin Dennis (:Oh, even better. That's...
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
Kevin Dennis (26:2.359)
That's amazing.
Sarah Roshan (26:3.730)
So our turnaround times are hopefully a little bit shorter than most people. And then it's me setting aside time to go through the gallery because I always double check everything and make sure that everything is there. that has saved me a lot of time. I definitely outsource all of my bookkeeping and all of my financial. I have a CPM on retainer. Essentially, I pay them a monthly fee and they do all my bookkeeping, sales tax, all of that stuff.
I personally don't know why any event professional, unless you really love it, should be doing any of those things. It's just like your time can be used. Like even if you like doing it, I feel like your time can be better used doing other things. Yeah. Yep. I still do quite a bit of like my social media. feel like it.
Kevin Dennis (:at building your business and growing. That's why we're all here.
Sarah Roshan (:deserves my voice, although I will say I'm a little bit better at the emerged social media right now than my own social media. I'm terrible at getting on camera and talking to people and putting myself out on my social. I'm trying to be better about that. I book all my flights and all my travel because I like to know where I'm staying and I like to look at the pictures and make sure that I'm going to be comfortable. What else do I need to work on? I feel like I outsource a lot.
Kevin Dennis (27:3.374)
You
Sarah Roshan (:Maybe not as much as I always, I'm always looking for other ways to outsource stuff or delegate it.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah, my husband works for me full time, so everything that I don't want to do, I pass on to him.
Kevin Dennis (:Oh, you're such
And he takes it good for him. So did it take you a while to find an editor to edit like your look and feel like was there a little. Because I feel like that's a lot to.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah, I mean, I used an editing. Yeah, there's like an editing. There used to be a lot of editing services. Now there's a lot of AI that's being utilized for editing, which is fine. Like it gets you relatively close depending on what the thing is. Like we'll run corporate events through AI because they're a little less picky than wedding clients. But I feel like weddings still need that like personal eye on it.
Kevin Dennis (28:3.054)
Oh.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:to kind of make sure that you're not missing things, that you're looking at facial expressions, like AI is not great at culling. Culling and the edits do okay, but I end up doing a lot more to those edits than if I outsource them. And honestly, it's worth the money for me to do it, for the peace of mind and the time savings. I thankfully got hooked up, my friend, Chris J. Evans, who's a really talented photographer out of Santa Barbara.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:Um, was using the person that I use now and, um, he's like, he's like my secret sauce. was like, Oh, I think I need his, his name is Efren and he's amazing. Um, I think I need his info. So, um, yeah, he's been, he's been a huge part of our team for like three, four years now. And, um, just a time saver and we can get in a whole full wedding back and I can check it out in an hour instead of eight hours.
Kevin Dennis (:Meh.
Sarah Roshan (:And so that's really helped me get a lot of time back and he does a great job and he takes feedback really well. If we want something adjusted, then he'll adjust it. He tends to under-pull things, so I end up pulling stuff out stuff, but I'd rather do that than over-pull stuff and be missing something. So we end up an hour to two hours maybe on a wedding instead of eight to 10 hours of editing and pulling and all the things.
Kevin Dennis (:Oh wow.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Kevin Dennis (:I mean, that's a whole day right there for you. Yeah, that's amazing. So I love it, love it, love it. All right, you mentioned AI. How do you feel AI is coming into our wonderful life and managing? I mean, we could do a whole episode on AI, but just like for time management-wise, there any AI things that your apps are using or anything right now to save time?
Sarah Roshan (:Yep. Yep.
Sarah Roshan (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:Well, I mean, I use chat GPT a lot. actually pay for it because I haven't do image things that you apparently can't do otherwise. But something that I always try to remind myself is like, Hey, could I be doing this faster with chat GPT? Like I wrote an article and I outlined the article and I wrote it and I dumped it in chat GPT. I was like, you like judge this a little bit, like judge the article, sent it off to the person and
And it saved me probably like 30 minutes, right? Um, but also like, I had this glitch in my system and somehow accidentally deleted half of our Fort Lauderdale attendees from this. so I had, I had like one, one sheet that had all the attendees on it and another sheet that didn't. I was like, Oh, it's going to take me forever to compare these two Excel files. And I just like dumped them both into chat juby team. was like, can you tell me the differences in these two files? like 30 seconds later.
You know, like trying to think of things that.
Kevin Dennis (:Holy Jesus, that would save you hours right there trying to figure that out.
Sarah Roshan (:Right. Like I was like, oh my gosh, I have to like, re put everybody back into our system. How am I going to compare these two lists? And I, I was like, huh, I wonder if that chat GBT could do this. I like downloaded both Excel files and I was like, can you please tell me who's missing on this one and who's missing on this one? And they like, in 30 seconds later, just like fixed it all up. And the same thing, like I have all these databases of all these contacts that I've made in the last 17 years across the country. And a lot of times I will send out like,
invites to our localized events using that. And I was like having my husband do it and I was like, this is so dumb. I wonder if, if, if chat TVT could do it. I, I dumped the spreadsheet I had, was like, can you please pull. They have like these tabs in this huge Google doc. That's like, Hey, this is like a contact list from somebody I met, like everybody I met at engaged in Venice. And then here's the contact of everybody I met.
When I was, you know, we have all these like databases of people I've met in WIPA, I've met in, and so I asked ChatGBT, I was like, can you take this Google file? And I actually had to download the Google file to be clear that it doesn't talk to Google. think Gemini might talk to Google a little bit better. But I had to download it into a CVS file. And he was like, yeah, we can't do this, but if you download a CVS file, I can do it. like two minutes later, I had a list of every single city, separated it out.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah.
Sarah Roshan (:with emails like two minutes later, was like, oh, that's like such a time saver. I, I, I'm now I'm trying to think of like, if I have a task to do, is there something that I can do in chat, GBT or Gemini that will make it a simpler task or like can do it 8 billion times faster than I could do it.
Kevin Dennis (:Wow.
Kevin Dennis (:Yeah. Well, and I think you mentioned the paid version, which I think a lot of us in the wedding industry, some people cheap out and try to get the free version. It's like paying for the paid version unlocks so much more. it's really, I think, what is it? Like 15, I forget what it is. Yeah, I was going to say, I think it's up to whatever.
Sarah Roshan (:when it's like 20 bucks a month or something. don't know. It's nothing. I was like, the amount of time it saves me, it's like totally worth $20 a month.
Kevin Dennis (:Right? So that's the thing I think for people mess up is investing in tech and paying for it saves you time and money. Therefore, you get more time back as well. All right. What have we missed? What have we not talked about? I feel like we've gone through all this stuff. But what do you think? Yeah.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah.
Sarah Roshan (:I don't know.
Kevin Dennis (:I feel like we gone like we went through all my things I wanted to talk about other than your mental health. What do you think? I just went through my questions right here and notice that I forgot to ask you about that. How do you feel this helps us mentally as we go? If we get better at time blocking, managing everything, setting up guest expectations, what do you think that helps us with? Because I think that's what happens is a lot of people get too overly stressed in our industry and they talk about burnout.
Sarah Roshan (34:8.498)
I think it's stress, but it's also, the burnout comes from imbalance, I think, at the end of the day, right? Like the burnout is because I'm working 80 hours and I don't get to spend any time with my family, right? That's where I start getting, where I start seeing myself and my mental health deteriorating and my family feels it, right? At the end of the day, it's like I get the mom guilt because I'm not.
Kevin Dennis (:Ew.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (:playing with my kid outside instead of sitting at my computer or I've missed three soccer games in a row. That's what kills me as a wedding professional. That's what makes my heart hurt is like, hey, I scheduled these weddings a year ago and now I have my kid's soccer schedule and the amount of times that I've missed a basketball game or I've missed a soccer game. I think that's really the hardest part for me about this industry.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm-hmm.
Sarah Roshan (35:4.782)
My kiddo went to the playoffs and they didn't tell us when playoffs were until the week before and I missed both of his playoff games. know, it's like, ah, like dagger to the heart. can't like, as a mom, you just feel so bad. You know, and you're talking to your kid, but you're in the middle of an event.
Kevin Dennis (:It really is. It really is. Yeah, you go from being this. Yeah, and you go from this hero to a zero in, you know, just in their eyes because it just you feel so bad. But it's the same thing. It's so I wish even like because I was telling you, I coach baseball and like they literally this year released the baseball schedule a week before.
the games were supposed to start and it's just like at one point I was like I have to schedule my work life and so I'm missing two games this year for the first time in a long time because they took so long to build a schedule.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah, I mean, I get frustrated because even last week we were actually going to come to California last week. We were thinking about going to the national parks out there and I've never been to Yosemite and I'm a big outdoor mountain girl. So I was super excited and they scheduled my kids' playoff game that Saturday and I was like, I guess we're not going. So it happens in real life too.
Kevin Dennis (:No.
Sarah Roshan (:Instead, I just stayed here and we sent our kids to basketball camp and they had fun and it all worked out. But I think that has really nothing to do with like time management. At some point, we're like out of that's out of our control. You just have to know that you're doing your best. you know, I think setting up yourself for success in time management is part of that success, right? Like, hey, I did my best, I time blocked this out. And like, the reality of my job is that I
I'm not gonna make every soccer game, I'm not gonna make every basketball game because basketball games and soccer games for little kids are on Saturday mornings or Saturday afternoons and that's just the reality of the industry we're in and you have to be okay with that in some ways.
Kevin Dennis (37:1.654)
Yeah.
Kevin Dennis (37:9.014)
Yeah, that's the roughest part is balancing it all. But I love all the tips you gave us. So how do we get in contact with you, And please give them all the emerge information.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah, so we have a pretty large growing membership for Merge across the country. And we're trying to do more events, like more even local events in California, Arizona, Texas, South Florida, New York, Chicago, and of course, Colorado. We have a pretty large base here. Our next big retreat, so we have about five, six retreats a year that are three day kind of, they're like mini conferences.
And our next one is in Houston, April 28 through the 30th, and they're incredible and really kind of focused on connection. So that's our next one. And then in June, our Steamboat one is actually almost sold out. So we haven't actually released tickets for it yet, but June 16 through the 18th will be in Steamboat and then New York City, the end of August, and then Snowmass in October.
Kevin Dennis (:Hmm.
Kevin Dennis (38:9.560)
Well, that's exciting.
Sarah Roshan (:We have those big events going and then we have twice a month we have online events that are geared at connections. So I say they're not webinars, they're geared at having conversations around your business and connecting with other event professionals across the country. And then we have hyper local events that are either, you know, dinners or activities and dinners and they're really experience based. So our focus is on connection even over education that we do have some education.
Kevin Dennis (:Mm.
Sarah Roshan (:It's really focused on connecting each other in an authentic and personal way. And you can find more about that at EmergeEventCollective.com. And then I'm Sarah Rashaun and my photo business is SarahRashaun.com.
Kevin Dennis (39:8.171)
And we will have all Sarah's information and how to get in contact with her in the show notes and we'll put it out there in the email blast that we sent out as well. So everyone will be able to get in touch with Sarah, hopefully go to an Emerge event. did say you mentioned Dana Cadwell earlier and I did sit next to her on one of the days. It was assigned seating and I got luckily we got assigned to sit next to each other, but she's very excited to come to your Houston collective that you're doing down there.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah, she bought her ticket today. was like, yay, Dana's coming. It's going to be really good. I hope people, I mean, we have like 75 people signed up right now, but hoping to sell it out at 150 people.
Kevin Dennis (:little retreat. yeah, yeah, so she was talking about it.
Kevin Dennis (:Oh, that's a... Wow, that's exciting. Good for you, Sarah. All right. So I always like to ask everyone what's their favorite app that they're using right now. And it could be rando, it could be personal, could be whatever you want. So what's your favorite app that you got going on right now?
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Roshan (40:3.630)
So I just downloaded this app called Beat, B-E-A-T, and it's an app that helps you put together reels. And I don't know about the rest of you, but it takes me forever to put a reel together if you're a social media person. I'm terrible at it. And so it like times everything to the music. And you can use templates too. Those work pretty good as well. But I just downloaded that, and they have some really cool features and things to put together reels.
Kevin Dennis (:You
Sarah Roshan (:is the newest app that I use. My app is also one of my favorites. So, Merge has its own app. it's, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's only for our members, but it has member directory in there. has all of our upcoming events in there. We can push notifications so we can send our members, know, notices and text messages and things in the app, which is nice to get notified when we send out a newsletter. So, that's always great.
Kevin Dennis (:Oh, does it really? I didn't even know that.
Sarah Roshan (41:1.742)
What other apps do I use? I don't know.
Kevin Dennis (41:4.782)
I think the beat one's cool because it's totally perfect what we were talking about today. It's going to save you time putting together your reels. I love it. That was a good one to end with. All right, Sarah. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, and I feel like I could talk to you forever and ever and ever. But thank you for being here today. Hopefully, we'll have you back on here at some point to talk about who knows what.
Sarah Roshan (:Yeah. Cool.
Sarah Roshan (:Sounds good. have a lot of info after 17 years of doing this as well. mean, you know, you just like learn shit along the way. So thank you so much for having me. It's been an honor.
Kevin Dennis (:I love that. Yeah, I love it. All right. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next time.
