nikki moore photography » the photo blog of nikki moore photography -- weddings & portraits in Lincoln, Nebraska

I’m writing all of this so you will celebrate with me and share my joy! I am going to be a full time photographer at the end of April!

I’ve learned a really great lesson this past year: it’s quite impossible to run a business, work 30 hours every week at another job, maintain meaningful relationships with my husband and family and dear friends, and keep our home in an orderly state. This lesson in priorities and balance is nothing new to anyone in the modern world — in fact, it’s a bit of wisdom my Dad shared with me a long time ago. I was telling him what I wanted to be when I grew up. I probably recited a long list of ambition and he said “Nikki, you can do whatever you want, but you can’t do it all at the same time.” In other words, choose what you want to do, and do it well. And in the last year or two, I have been doing a lot of things but none of them, it seems, very well. In order to feel successful in one area of life, the others all had to suffer. That is not a sustainable way to live.

It got hard last year. I was (and still am, through April) working around 30 hours per week at my regular job. Justin and I rearranged what we could to have more time together, and he did a lot more household tasks. It was especially rough last summer and fall (my busiest seasons so far). I was staying up late most nights to work on business-related things, and often working before actually going to work the next morning.  When I got home from my regular job midafternoon, I would often be greeted with a messy kitchen and an empty fridge. Several voicemails on my business line that had come in during the day. A pile of packages at the door holding prints and albums and other things that needed to be opened, inspected, invoiced, repackaged with receipts and cute wrapping and handwritten notes, and brought back to the post office. Emails from clients about rescheduling shoot dates or outfit questions or problems with online ordering. Basic wedding and portrait inquiries via email or phone. Deadlines for marketing materials to be sent to the printers. Stacks of receipts and mileage tallies waiting to be entered into my accounting software. Purchased-but-yet-unwatched video workshops about posing or lighting or search engine optimization. Several shoots and weddings waiting to be culled and edited and blogged and Facebooked and resized and burned and packaged and sent. Income and sales tax reports to be filed and remitted. Phone calls I need to make to the printer or UPS or web designer, many of which couldn’t be made in the evenings anyways.  Many evenings also brought client meetings. Weddings took up many weekends. Don’t even think about getting started on my list of 15-20 longer-term business plans, that need a lot of up-front time to begin development.

This is not counting my patient but hungry husband coming home from work, or friends or family calling to see if we can join them for dinner or a movie. Not counting preparing the Sunday School lesson for the junior high girls, making a meal plan for the week, finding a proper organization system for files and paperwork, asking my husband how his day was and trying to have a real non-business-related conversation with him. This is not counting any personal reading or Bible study, any home-buying research and shopping, any cleaning or food prep for friends coming over next week, any buying of birthday or wedding or baby shower cards or gifts, and any attempt at some sort of exercise.

I promise I’m not exaggerating here, and I’ve probably left a lot out. My point in sharing this, though, isn’t to make you feel sorry for me, or to prove that my life is oh so hard. I know there are folks who do all this and more (though I bet they struggle with balance and priorities too).  I’m not saying that I’m busier than everyone else in the world. I’m just saying that for me and my husband, this is a less than ideal way to live. It is unsustainable. I was (sort of) doing it all, but true to my Dad’s wise words, I wasn’t doing it all very well.

It kind of reached a tipping point last fall, and we knew something was going to have to give. Justin and I talked about it the situation frequently.  I had already replaced my income from my regular job with my business income, and given more time to devote to my business, I could certainly increase my business income.  So I knew there was potential…but in the grand scheme of things, I’m not going to lie…it’s really hard to leave a stable job and a guaranteed income. My position at work has changed many times, but I’ve worked there almost since high school. And I have some very good friends at my workplace! But again and again, we came to the conclusion that it was time to end my employment there. That job isn’t where my heart is.

[Can I brag about my husband for a minute? Justin has been a pillar of grace and support as I struggle to learn new things and keep my priorities in order. He has carried more than his fair share of housework in order to give me time to work on necessary business stuff. Each time he's vacuumed the apartment, loaded and emptied the dishwasher, and done two weeks' worth of laundry in one afternoon (washed, dried, folded and put away, folks!), it's been a solid statement of his support for me. Love with feet, I've heard it called. Justin has also been my "technology manager." He's researched, designed and put into working order my little city of external hard drives, and made sure my data backups happen regularly and automatically. (He even bought me a fireproof safe for Christmas last year - be still my heart!) Justin has helped me install and work with my accounting software, and created budget and mileage spreadsheets...not to mention he's done all the research and work on my business income taxes! There's so much that he, as a mathematician and engineer, is good at that I'm not. I'm so very grateful for everything he's done for me. God has blessed me through Justin in ways too many to count.]

So, back to our regular programming. You know what’s cool? Four years ago, before we were married, Justin and I sat in a coffee shop and reflected together “Wouldn’t it be incredible if, one day, I could work from home as a photographer?” It was just a pipe dream at that point, but one we’ve been working towards ever since. One very large reason we chose this path, and have been dreaming it for so long, is so eventually I can work from home when we have children. Yes, things will likely look very different in two or five or ten years. There will be parts of my life that retreat into the background, so I can do what’s important in that moment. But the God who is good and faithful now will have more good things for us in that season.

So you’ve read this far and maybe you’re excited about your own art or craft, thinking and hoping to go into full-time business yourself. Great! But I want to make something clear. I am not simply quitting my day job because I want to “follow my dreams” (though I do!). I’m not even doing it because I have a “passion for photography” (though I do!). I’m doing it because I own a business that I made from scratch, and my business is succeeding. I would not have quit my job if my business weren’t in a good place. I’ve done a LOT of really boring, non-creative, left-brain, tedious work. Math, even, and plenty of it. I’ve created and kept detailed spreadsheets, learned to work small business accounting software, run profit-loss reports, gotten my sales tax permit and remitted payments to the state (so as not to be an illegal business, and all). All of that means I’m in a good place to “follow my dreams.” But passion for art doesn’t automatically lead to good business sense. Ask me how I know!

If you’d love to be your own boss, here’s something I wish I’d learned sooner: Learn how to run a business. This sounds crappy, but I do about 90% business work and 10% creative work. A professional photographer, for example, should be prepared to be a marketer, graphic designer, accountant, brander, photo editor and retoucher, advertisement copywriter, blogger, social media expert, contract/legal writer, search engine optimizer, tax preparer, customer service front line, troubleshooter, sales department, shipping manager…and likely a lot more. Add employees and the mix gets even more complex. (Yes, you can and should outsource some of that, but that still takes research.) I am playing catch-up in this area, because at first, I spent a ton of effort learning my camera and art. Great, and definitely necessary – but being a good photographer does not necessarily make you a successful photographer. I am NOT saying I am some expert on running a business — far from it. Which is exactly why I needed (and still very much need) to be educated as a business person.

I am rather lucky to find that I enjoy the business side of things. I truly feel that this, right now at least, is the perfect path for me. It fits me like a glove. And maybe eventually I’ll start another business…I already have more ideas. (Oh dear…let’s keep that on the back burner for now!)

I also get to work with other inspiring small business owners: Aaron from Nelsen Technologies (he designed my website from scratch, and has some other projects in the works for me too), Johanna from Arbor Corner Studio (she designed my Nebraska Wedding Day advertisements), Stephanie from Pink Orchid Press (she created my extensive letterpress suite), all the creative minds at Nebraska Wedding Day Magazine, and many other Etsy sellers, printers, design shops, and other boutiques who have supplied what I needed at the time. Not to mention all the inspiring and talented photographers I’ve met locally! I love supporting other small and/or local businesses, and I hope you do as well! Starting a business has really encouraged me to support other small business owners.

To Justin: THANK YOU for your unending patience as I tearfully struggle through lengthy pricing issues, for your brilliant technological mind and willingness to use it to help my business stay secure, for your understanding when the apartment isn’t always perfectly clean, and for encouraging me to do the things that matter. To my family and friends and supportive online communities (you forum gals know who you are): THANK YOU for the support, encouragement, critiques, tough love, brainstorming sessions, and for handing out all the business cards I’ve insinuated upon you (you did hand them out, right? Right?), and for trying to look interested when I tell you about my latest lens or pricing structure. And Dad, thank you for speaking words of wisdom into a fourteen-tear-old’s ears even when I probably pretended not to listen. To all of my clients: THANK YOU for choosing me to share your most special moments with you, photographing your families, your weddings, your graduating high school seniors, your children, your baby bellies…all these pivotal, unique times in your life. I’m so grateful to be a part of them. Thank you for telling your friends about me, too. It’s my hope and intent that this new chapter of my life will let me pursue even greater customer service and clearer communication throughout the shooting and ordering process, as well as lots of great new products and offerings.

I am by no means saying I’ve “made it” and that things are going to be all rosy. My income won’t be steady, and I’ll have to adjust to the discipline of working out of my home. I am by no means saying my business is perfect and that I’ve got it all figured out. Not by a very long shot. All I’m saying is, I’m ready and excited for this new chapter in my life. Thanks for celebrating with me!

“The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” -Anais Nin