We recently connected with Jackie Siggard and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jackie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

I absolutely love being a business owner. It is 10 times harder and a lot more work, but so much more rewarding!

I came from working full-time at Walmart and I have worked at Walmart for six years before I quit to pursue photography. I honestly didn’t think you could make photography a full-time career. But once I had my first daughter, I did not want to send her to daycare and go back to a 40 hour work week away from her. So I decided to quit my job and pursue photography full-time while my husband kept his Normal job. Within five months I was able to supplement my income for the year at Walmart. A year later my husband quit his job and joined the team doing videography and we’ve been doing this full-time ever since 2017.

Quitting a stable job can be very scary. If you are in the same boat, I highly recommend saving up enough money to where you feel comfortable, quitting your job and putting 100% into your business. The more time you can focus on your business, the quicker it will grow. I understand that not all people can just quit their job to start another business so for that instance, continue working a full-time job and spend a lot of your extra time trying to build up your business to where you can start cutting back on your normal job.

Being a business owner is amazing because you can choose how much you want to work and set your own hours. I really wanted to make this work so I could be home with my kids more and it has been so fulfilling.

Jackie, 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?

My name is Jackie siggard and I have always loved photography. I decided to do photography in 2014 and thought it would be something I would just do on the side for fun but little did I know you could turn this into a full career!

I started out, just doing family photography and then in 2016 started to do weddings, and fell in love with them. So now I do weddings full-time. I love being able to catch of the biggest day of peoples lives.

We do photography and videography, and I think it’s important for every person to have that for their wedding day. And just to stay on top of family photos every year. Things change so quickly and tomorrow is never promised so I think photography is so important to be able to look back on your family and your memories..

When clients book me I want to be more than just their photographer I want to become friends with my clients and help them wherever I can.

I know there are a lot of photographers in Utah, but I think my client experience help set me apart from everyone from the things that we offer our clients and how we go the extra mile to help them plan prep for their big day. A wedding is one day you can’t get back and we are very experienced in the wedding industry and want every couples wedding to go as smooth as possible and to be as perfect as possible so they don’t have to stress about anything..

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

So the one nice thing about photography is you do not need a lot of money to get started. I started with a beginner camera. The Nikon D 5200 with the kit lens that came with it.

I think it is extremely important to try to not go into debt, especially in this business. I don’t think it’s necessary for you to buy the newest in greatest camera out there.

Start with what you can afford and save your money, and slowly work out from there. I didn’t buy my really nice camera until I was almost 2 years into my business and I had saved up my money to pay for everything in cash.

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

The best source of clients from myself has been Google. I have been able to optimize my website for SEO, which is search engine optimization. This basically helps your website be found on Google. I have put a lot of work and effort into building up my SEO over the past couple years so that when people search for Photographer, I show up on the first page of Google for the keywords I want.

This works for any type of business owner, so I highly recommend that you try to optimize your website for SEO because then you don’t have to put as much effort into advertising consistently. Once you set everything up, you don’t have to touch it as much.

Contact Info:

• Website: Jackiesiggardphotography.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/jackiesiggardphotovideo

Image Credits
@jackiesiggardphotovideo