We were lucky to catch up with Jade Hincks recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jade, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?
The path of a business owner is special in the way that you get define the parameters of success. Be it financial or creative, big or small, we have the option to set the bar in this way. It makes it tricky, as it increases the opportunity to play it safe (which could lead to stagnation or very slow growth over time), but when that tactic is used as a way to motivate and inspire you have discovered the key. I use it often to expand my own limiting beliefs about my creative capability, and as a tool to motivate myself to grow my business. The clearest example I can share on this is finally investing in booking and tax preparing for my Wedding and Boudoir Photography business. I could have viewed the inability – and honestly the outright resistance of doing math – as a failure, but instead realized that delegating that task to a professional who loves that job? Instant success. It freed up time for me to hone my creative eye, and it released the emotional burden weighing me down in self doubt.
Jade, 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?
I wish I could say I knew that I would be a business owner and a creative when I was younger. The truth is that it took longer for me to know myself than it did for photography to find me. Out of high school in a country where there is little leeway for sampling careers via college degrees, photography was the easiest and most aligned choice having already been learning for several years before graduation. After earning my degree in Fine Art Photography, my family emigrated, and I felt I was already behind the curve on building something in my life. Both my parents were entrepreneurs, so the natural choice was starting my own business at about 20. Now, after more than a decade I specialize in Small Wedding experiences, along with super supportive and intuitive boudoir as the focus of my portrait photography. I only began to truly grasp how much blood sweat and tears I had invested in my clients and my business when I started counting my wedding couples’ anniversaries. First one year, then three years, then six and now ten have passed and I’m stuck dumb to have stood this long in an industry that burns out creatives so dang quick. It is this that I feel the most pride in, is the tenacity and audacity to have grown and stumbled and improved over the years, while serving so many amazing people.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
The toxic romanticization of perfection, by way of having to convince myself that as humans we are not meant to flawless. This is a mind-set, self-valuement issue more so than anything, but in this world where we compare ourselves to phone screens, it was a reasonable glitch in my mind. But add to that the concept that I was ‘competing’ on a visual field, as a visual creative, and personally believing myself to fall short at every turn? It reached a point that it debilitated my creative process and stunted the potential of connection I could develop with my couples and clients. I recall so clearly the moment that these feelings where challenged, and I started giving myself so much more grace when comparing my work with others’. I had delivered a completed wedding gallery a week or so earlier, but had yet to hear back from the couple, so of course I spiraled (truly thinking that they would rather ghost me than lie about the photos I created for them), when I received the download. How dare I doubt the trust and investment that 30 couples a year put in my for their weddings? Why am I disregarding how much magic I get to create with them? It was a powerful shift that put me back on track, and the bonus is that I heard from the couple the next week: they loved every image! The idea that I had to be perfect was truly nuts – perfect to whose standards? Selfishly, my own that I had truly just made up according to so many strangers statistics. What a rubbish thing to do.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Most plainly, the level of service I provide, which has lead to most of work being word of mouth, or new clients that adjacently worked with me (such as bridesmaids). I take great pride of the way that I do business, not just the product I produce. The wedding photography industry is incredibly saturated, and there are only so many ways to offer the service of taking an image and getting it into a clients hands. I will not compromise on how I hold myself, or the attentiveness and awareness I have while I work. The wild thing is that none of the things I do, could be described as extrenuous: I learn the names of family at weddings, I consult and deep dive insecurities and super powers with my boudoir clients, I remain present with guests and build relationships with vendors, and so many other small things. Having built it so deeply into my work flow, all these things come naturally for me now but it is the singular thing that sets me apart and helps people remember who I am, and its purely because of HOW I do what I do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lilysandhorns.com
- Instagram: @lilysandhornsphoto
- Facebook: Lilys & Horns Photo
Image Credits
Floristry – Freckled Fleur
Rentals – Motif Events
Venues – Vista 222 Winery, Cedar Bloom Farm