We recently connected with Jessica Hunt and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

After navigating the past 10 years in business, the two things that stand out most to me that I could have done differently to accelerate the growth of my brand and company are a more strategic approach to networking and developing systems/workflows within the business to make day-to-day operations more efficient and facilitate more revenue.

As a very young business owner, I spent a lot of time working on my business and working to grow my brand through a strong online presence and marketing strategy. After gaining the confidence to start networking in person with my peers and within my industry, I realized I spent far too much time concerned about things that did not allow me to make in-person connections with potential clients or community members. Since making a dedicated effort to foster and grow my professional relationships through in-person networking at community events, I’ve seen a radical change in business growth from those connections and the time I’ve spent fostering them.

In regards to automation, systems, and workflows of the business, I can see now, in hindsight, that avoiding that process of creating and mapping out each step from our first handshake with a client to the end of their experience hindered my team’s ability to deliver a consistent quality of service to our clients and bring in more revenue over time. Since building out those systems and automating much of what we do with our clients before their time with us on-site, that back-end work throughout the business now allows us to prioritize our in-person interactions with clients and consistently present a higher quality of service for every client. Delaying a focus on automated systems set up for each client experience resulted in us spending more time on repeated tasks and busy work to facilitate bookings and less time in person with clients, generating revenue.

Jessica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Brief Bio:

Jessica Hunt received her first digital camera as a gift at 16 and has been in love with capturing moments we can never get back ever since. Every click of the shutter reminds us that legacies find their homes in photographs and that each story is worth capturing.

Influenced by her empathy and care for her clients’ legacies, Jessica is passionate about using photographs to tell stories that allow couples to fall even more in love with each other and connect on a deeper level, long after their wedding day ends.

To date, Jessica has over 12 years of experience in the wedding industry and has photographed over 215 wedding celebrations. Her work has graced the cover and pages of dozens of print and online publications in recent years. She was named ‘The State’s’ Best Photographer in South Carolina in 2023. Jessica is one of RangeFinder’s 30 Rising Stars Nominees, a Hall of Fame photographer at The Knot, and has received over 100 five-star reviews online from her couples.

When she’s not helping a couple feel comfortable and at ease in front of her lens, you can find her spending time with her partner and fur family, enjoying a coffee or cocktail with friends, or deep into prestige drama on her favorite streaming platforms.

Jessica welcomes every expression of love in front of her camera and is deeply honored to celebrate ALL cultural backgrounds, faith traditions, disabilities, body types, skin tones, genders, and LGBTQ+ partners.

Brief Bio on our Team & What We Offer:

Jessica and the Jessica Hunt Photography creative team specialize in photographing South Carolina and destination weddings, portraits, commercial work for local brands, and boudoir photographs. We resonate most with clients who are authentic, compassionate, brave, and kind.

Along with the Principal Photographer, Jessica Hunt, our team consists of many talented photographers across South Carolina who serve a variety of photography needs for our community. Jessica Hunt professionally trains JHP’s associate photographers, and each of our team members has shadowed Jessica for 30 or more wedding celebrations, events, portrait sessions, and more. Our team is the perfect fit for clients seeking a guided photography experience for their wedding celebration, elopement, portraits, and other photography needs.

What Sets Us Apart/Things We are Most Proud of:

What sets Jessica Hunt Photography and the JHP creative team apart from our peers in our industry is our dedication to a people-first approach in everything we do with our clients. We deeply believe in honoring our clients’ experiences and prioritizing their humanity in our interactions. This looks like a lot of different things for us; some great examples are focusing on our couples’ candid moments and moments with their loved ones over photos of decor and details on wedding days or working with our branding clients before their session through not only multiple calls planning calls, a whole guided experience through planning out their photos for their business and guidance how to utilize those photos after their time with us.

We focus on providing an enjoyable experience for each of our clients throughout the planning process, during their time in front of the camera, and during the delivery of their memories or photographs after their time with us. Being flexible for our clients, going the extra mile, and constantly prioritizing their needs above our own is how we’ve consistently grown a loyal client base over the past decade. Our clients and their needs are what we focus most on, and their lived experience throughout their time in front of the camera is how we show up intentionally for every event or session.

Recently, we shared this Instagram caption about this topic from the brand that dives into our mission & one of the core principles of our brand:

“In the past few years, I’ve adopted the phrase ‘people-first’ as one of the core principles of my business. Being in an industry where aesthetics, eye-catching design, and epic floral budgets are sometimes seemingly more important (on social media especially!) than the two people promising their lives to one another, it’s easy to get lost in all of that and forget what weddings are truly about – people. ⁠
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Humans. And their stories – your stories. ⁠
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This idea informs everything we do with our couples: their personhood and humanity should be honored above all else on their wedding day and throughout their experience with us. ⁠
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For us, it’s not about the most insane element of design one could ever dream up…. or the most perfect feature in the best publication in the industry that week. (Though we do love those things, don’t get me wrong!)⁠
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At the end of the day… everything we do with our couples and our team is firmly rooted in the idea that the most important thing about this industry and what we do are the people we serve, the creative partners we serve alongside, and the sacred tradition of promising ones life to another. ⁠
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That’s it. People first, in everything we do.⁠”

Any advice for managing a team?

The ‘people-first’ approach, one of my business’s core principles, has guided me in managing my team and maintaining morale amongst our members.

Showing up for our team when they have personal needs arise, approaching our communication with clarity and empathy, setting up each of our team members for success when working with clients, and encouraging monthly team building activities are ways we have worked to intentionally pour into and mentor the photographers and members of our team.

Putting their needs as humans above my own, or the needs of the brand, has consistently resulted in team members who are deeply dedicated to our mission and willing to go the extra mile for each of our couples and clients.

Communicating effectively and clearly with each team member about their responsibilities and roles has also helped make our interactions as a team smoother and our work together more successful. By providing everything the team could need, setting them up for success in every way possible, and facilitating their work on-site with clients, I’ve fostered an attitude within our team of trust in each other and my guidance, and that allows them to do their best work for our clients at each event.

Becoming a leader and manager of team members has been a growing experience, but one that is so incredibly rewarding as I watch my team members grow professionally, in their skill with the services we offer, and in their personal lives as their position with the team facilitates their lives and passions.

With my experience managing a small team, the best advice I can offer is to show up for your team by prioritizing their humanity over their labor in every avenue of your work together. The quality of their work will improve, and the team’s morale will remain high when team members feel valued, taken care of, and set up for success in each role.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons I needed to unlearn as a business owner was waiting until things were perfect before starting the next venture, project, or service offering. Oftentimes, as an entrepreneur of a small business, it has been easy for me to get bogged down in the need for perfection in every little detail of any new service offering, social media post, or sales page. I have had to unlearn that perfection is not required and that a better way to look at many new things that you may be exploring is: “Done is better than perfect”

I’ve spent much time in my career pushing past the fear of not getting something with a new launch exactly right or perfect. That desire for perfection has served me in many ways but doesn’t often serve me in every part of my business. I now constantly remind myself that “Done is better than perfect” and have learned to give myself the freedom to push past fear and make impactful and important moves within the brand with new offerings. After unlearning the need for perfection and with a more healthy view of what’s truly required of myself and my team before releasing or launching that next thing or posting what we hope is the perfect social media post that will gain tons of engagement, I’ve been able to make decisions for the business more quickly and with more success.

Social media marketing is an excellent example of pushing past this fear that things will not be perfect. I found myself not achieving perfection, especially on social media, and that fear kept me from posting or marketing via those pathways successfully. That desire for perfection holds businesses, especially small ones like mine, back and can truly hurt the brand’s overall success.

I’ve worked to unlearn perfect and learn that sometimes: “Done is better than perfect.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jessicahuntphotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jhuntphotos/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jhuntphotography
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-hunt-20b6665b/