We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kellē Sauer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kellē, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My business: a 20-year-old wedding and portrait photography business pivoted into copywriting/editing, pivoted again into brand identity development, and finally open officially for identity consulting.

My mission: to support creative entrepreneurs who have been told to “be anyone but you” in their business.

My story:

“Hi, I’m Kellē. I’m a person who sees people.”

This is how my photography bio began for 15 years.

All my life, I have seen people. Who they are, who they want to be, who they are choosing to be, who they don’t even know they could be.

But the longer I’ve been an entrepreneur, the less I have seen people being THEM. Who they really are at their core. Who they really want to be. And I’ve seen people doing and being all kinds of things they don’t want to be or do, just to fold themselves into *something* they’ve been told will help them “get it right” or “break through that ceiling” or “sell out that launch” or, more pointedly, “succeed.”

And I am not okay with this. As a customer, I don’t want to buy from people who are just making stuff up to try to impress me. As a client, I don’t want to be shoved into someone’s predefined idea of what my pain points are and how they can be fixed. As a business owner, I don’t want my people feeling like they can’t be people with me.

I spent a long time trying to figure out how to be myself in my business. How to make my business identity look like something *I* wanted while also looking like something everybody else wanted.

I was the oldest of eight children in a conservative Christian subculture where everyone was supposed to look the same, act the same, BE the same — and no matter what I did, I was NEVER the same.

After a neurological issue ended my college experience and put me in a wheelchair, an experience with a 2-year postpartum depression, and a chronic illness that settled in to stay, I stood even less chance of being what I was supposed to be—in any arena.

I had no choice but to set “the rules” aside and figure out my own way forward.

I built my business around my body’s needs, around my family, around multiple moves and financial situations, and eventually, around my own desire.

And then there was this one special client who came into my business with a question I had been asking for years.

“How can I be myself in my business… and get paid for it?”

She stayed with me for four years in one intentional, renewable, long-term support offer I made, and we went to work.

We did launches one way. We experimented selling that other way. We tried and failed and had huge wins and hard losses. We held one another. We swapped offers back and forth, paying each other so many times we lost count. I took masterminds and worked on my own business while I worked on hers, and she got outside coaching, AND WE FIGURED IT OUT.

What mattered to HER.
What mattered to ME.

How to get paid for being ourselves in our business.

And how FREAKING good it feels.

As I pivoted into consulting, I realized just how long this mission has been my mission—it’s been present in every iteration of my business since I began it.

It showed up in the ache for my brides to get to feel like their dreams were coming true on their wedding day.

It deeply influenced the way I rearranged words and sentences to be exactly what my clients wanted them to be.

It echoed in the identity questions I asked my clients about “why do you” and “who are you” and “who are your people” and “what do you want.”

I fed it getting so curious about my clients’ struggles that I would find training myself to help them figure it out so we could do it authentically together.

I still see people, and it’s so beautiful to find the ones who are doing what they are meant to do and being who they are meant to be. The best way to do *anything* is to be fully yourself in it. (That’s permission, and inspiration, and instruction, and something I believe with all my heart. I know I’m doing my life’s work now, and this business is the place I’m doing it.)

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

The main thing (truly) is that I’m completely sold on the success of YOU being YOU in your business.

A few more specifics:

1.) I’m a co-creative brand + business consultant with a passion for creative entrepreneurs, deeply connective language, and really safe spaces. I believe that BRANDING IS A LOVE STORY and BEING YOU IS THE MOST SUSTAINABLE WAY TO DO BUSINESS. I hold space for impossible things, like authentic energy and selling happy. Like love stories that bring businesses into being. Like you breathing fire.

MY WORK is to do the things I can’t not do. To turn “marketing” into love letters, to articulate the meaning behind “business things” for creatives, to affirm and encourage passion for humans who just. can’t. get. enough. Combining 15 years in the wedding photography industry and a passion for original, honest brand voices, I’ve turned “seeing people” through my lens to supporting creative entrepreneurs who have been told to be anything-but-YOU in their business.

I AM an identity consultant, which means that I am qualified and experienced to look at how YOU are in your business/brand, and help direct your energy toward the biggest returns for YOU (based on your desire for your business/brand).

2.) I currently offer 1:1 consulting and development containers centered around reconnecting you with your passion and with your people. These (limited) spaces are ideal for an intentional, different-thinking entrepreneur who leads with their intuition, connects with their heart, and wants a brand that reflects their deep purpose at every level—from ethos and identity to message and marketing to customer connection and growth.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In my first ten years in business, I had built a solid wedding photography business that was headed for success. I had the location (Charleston, South Carolina), the relationships, the connections, the portfolio, and the energy–and a husband who was burning himself out in a job that was taking him nowhere.

Our family was forced to leave the home we had just bought, the city we loved, and the people who had become our people during our eight-year stay, and start absolutely everything over in a new place on the other side of the country.

I tried for a couple of years to maintain what I had built through destination work, but while my husband was coming into his own, our new locale did not offer clients or opportunities for my business.

I finally reached out for a copy-editing gig or two and invested in a business course, where I was tapped to assist other attendees with their brand copywriting.

With nothing to lose and a desire to keep my business running, I opened a copy branch of the business in 2019, taking on several clients who made 2020 my best year in business to date.

At the time, I thought I was ONLY pivoting the clients I had been trying to connect with; I later realized I was pivoting *everything,* and as I officially closed the doors to my wedding and portrait business last week, it was amazing to see how that one step pointed me toward the entrepreneur I am today, supporting other entrepreneurs who are changing the world–in ways my camera was never going to reach.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The first most obvious answer here: REFERRALS. Nearly all of my clients (in every iteration of my business) have come by way of others who have worked with me.

But this also holds a second answer: ME BEING MYSELF has also been a source.

When I get a query or a referral, I almost always offer a call so people can meet with ME

I attract and repel people like a boss–and it’s not intentional. The people who love me, LOVE me, and the people who don’t… well, all right then.

This has meant a bit of personal growth: setting aside the entrepreneur who was more excited about publication than about a potential client’s wedding photography and welcoming the experienced, confident consultant who knows how to bring just about anything into being if her client is in love with it.

But I have booked more of my queries than I have lost when I have responded as myself, with honesty, professionalism, and authentic personal connection.

My people recommend me because the energy I bring to every level of my work is authentic, intuitive, and other-oriented. I’ve learned to offer authentic, non-competitive, connected energy whether I’m sharing from my own personal journey on social media or opening a 12-month consulting container with a CEO making more room for THEM in their business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bykellesauer.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bykellesauer

Image Credits

All images are by Kellē Sauer, photographed for various clients for branding/marketing/publication, as apprearing in my client samples on this page:

https://bykellesauer.com/my-offers