We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chantelle West. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chantelle below.
Chantelle, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.
Thanks for having me! What a great topic…one that I’m sure a lot of people have been thinking about lately.
Personally, I think our current educational system has a lot of work to do. But if I had to narrow it down to one thing, I’d say not teaching us how to Think Critically would be my main issue. Instead, most curriculums simply teach how to memorize information (often only staying a short while in our short term memory) to get the “right” answers for a test. This approach to teaching & learning has been proven not to be effective in creating long term synaptic processes and, in my eyes, creates a very lethargic population. One that takes orders easily, but doesn’t know how to ask questions, think outside-the-box or work through the tough/complex emotions that come with this questioning.
Critical thinking is a life skill that can be applied to any and every aspect of your life. From defining what your own personal belief system is, to choosing and going after a career that’s in alignment with your values, vision for your future and your unique skill set. Critical thinking teaches you to question, challenge different approaches to knowledge and perceive wisdom from an objective standpoint. (even if it differs from your upbringing or those around you) This, I believe, is absolutely essential in order to have a truly fulfilling life and career.
Thankfully though, due to the gap in the education system, some awesome people have made wonderful free online resources to help people learn this skill. It may not be perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
Absolutely! Looking back, I think my career story really started when I was 17. Right around that time, I had a hard epiphany that my life-long dream of being a singer & actress wasn’t going to come to fruition, due to some different circumstances. I was crushed and totally lost! Less than a year from graduating high school and with absolutely no idea what I wanted to study, I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed.
I asked God to help me find what I was meant to do…something where I could be creative, serve people & still make a decent living! Fast forward 10+ years later, and boy did He deliver!
Photography & videography was my answered prayer. I know that sounds insanely dramatic (which I suppose isn’t that surprising coming from a former drama student), but I believe it with every ounce in my being! We all have a calling, a gift, a special something that will make this world a better place. And I believe mine is to help people tell their stories. From documenting precious moments in people’s personal lives, to telling the story of small businesses so others can better understand what their company is all about.
But in the end, the most important thing for me is the relationship I build with my clients. To create an environment that feels like they’re working with a friend they’ve known for years, instead of a random stranger with a camera in their face.
My goal is to be super easy to work with: friendly, uncomplicated and down-to-earth. I want to be that dependable person you can trust to make you feel comfortable, while keeping you laughing and smiling, even if you’ve never had much experience being in front of the camera before! Above all, I want my clients to have fun, feel seen & have something they’ll look back on with a fond smile.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
During my first year and a half of community college, I worked my booty off to get straight A’s so I could qualify for a university scholarship!! Then…I took a random film photography class as an extracurricular activity, and absolutely fell in love.
Following this, during the last semester of my associates, I came up with a portrait photography business plan. (fancy PowerPoint and everything) I then presented it to my parents & pitched them on the idea of using the money they were planning to help me fund a portion of my bachelors degree, into using it to start up my business. After some deliberation, they kindly agreed to the proposal and off I went!
Thankfully, in addition to this, I soon landed a job working at Fort Worth Camera which helped me buy a lot of my equipment at cost…saving me a good chunk of money! And the rest is history.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Here are my top 4 strategies for growing your client base:
- Networking. Networking. Networking. The relationships you build and foster in your professional circle will ALWAYS either help you move forward, or hold you back.
- Under promise & over deliver to each client, so they can’t help but talk you up to your friends.
- Find a community of people in your industry, so you can help lift each other up & refer each other to clients if you’re unavailable.
- Say yes to that opportunity, even if it’s a short-term thing. You never know what opportunities will open up, if you’re open to possibilities.
Now go out and get to it!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lnk.bio/chantellemariephotography
- Instagram: chantellemariephotography
- Facebook: facebook.com/chantellemariephotography
Image Credits
All photos by Chantelle Marie Photography