We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jesi Cason. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jesi below.

Alright, Jesi thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

The key to success is being tenacious about problem solving. Murphy’s Law “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” absolutely applies to business. Equipment will fail. People will flake on you. Competition will sneak up on you. Sales will drop. Disasters will happen. But survivors are the business owners who look at a problem and say “Ok, let’s find a solution” rather than crumbling under the pressure. There is almost always a solution to every problem. It may not be easy, or cheap, but there is a solution!

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 back background and context?

I make small business owners and creative entrepreneurs impossible to ignore by creating bold, expressive, on-brand photography content. The #1 problem most brands must overcome is learning how to stand out in their market, and scroll-stopping photos that connect the audience personally with the business is a crucial ingredient in any marketing strategy. The types of brands who come to me are people who want to build relationships and trust with their audience, to turn that audience into friends, and turn those friends into clients or customers. My goal is to create a wrap-around bear-hug service, where (instead of dumping a bunch of photos on my clients and moving on to the next project) I provide tips and guidance for how to build a strong personal brand and communicate effectively with your ideal clients. I’m most proud of how I’m able to help small business owners like myself find and connect with people who LOVE what they’re offering.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I did not grow up in a wealthy family – in fact, my upbringing was made possible by government assistance and the charity of the community around me. My rural public school education didn’t set me up for an Ivy League future and, being a first generation college student, my road to community college was confusing and ended in dropping out. No one in my family had ever even suggested entrepreneurship as an option for me. So when I first picked up a camera, I didn’t think “I’ll turn this into a six-figure business one day!”

The idea of running a photography business came from a co-worker at a non-profit where I’d worked for many years. He ran a program called The Southwest Florida MicroEnterprise Institute which provided small business coaching and courses for aspiring entrepreneurs. He knew of my love for photography and suggested I take the 12 week course. Upon completion of the course, I had a professionally prepared Feasibility Plan (similar to a business plan) and the opportunity to apply for a low-interest loan that relied on my character rather than my credit score for qualification.

I waited about a year before applying for the $2,500 loan, while also saving up about $1,000 and receiving a micro-grant of $1,000 from a women-in-business organization. With those funds, I was able to purchase a full frame digital camera, lenses, and basic lighting equipment as well as launch my first website. I set a goal for myself to only pay back the loan using earnings directly from my photography business, not personal finances from my day job – and I paid it back 1 year later without ever dipping into my personal bank account.

I went on to put my business on pause for a few years while I found jobs working for other photography companies so that I could learn more about the business of photography – then formally launched my own brand full time in December 2019.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

“Everyone deserves great photos!”

This was my personal motto when I first started exploring a photography business. Having grown up in a low-income family, I have only two studio portraits of my family, and no digital versions of either one. Photography in the 80s and 90s was seen as a luxury, a special occasion, and a treasure. And that meant my family simply couldn’t afford to have professional photos. I have a handful of disposable camera film prints in my possession that show my childhood, and the occasional embarrassing school portrait – but that’s it as far as photos of my past. I carried that lesson into my adulthood – that photography should be accessible to every person (and I still believe that!)

But – the wrong lesson to take from my experience is that everyone deserves FREE or CHEAP photography created by professionals. And that was what I mistakenly thought when I first explored launching a business. I thought prices should be as low as possible so that every family could have what I never had as a child – hundreds of beautiful family portraits.

Yes, everyone deserves great photos – but with smartphones and digital cameras being so prevalent and affordable in the modern age, everyone CAN have great photos easily. Your average smartphone camera takes higher quality images than the first digital camera I bought in 2007. With a bit of thought regarding lighting and posing, most families can take their own family photos and achieve perfectly good results. Most businesses can take photos of their products or their storefront or their employees on a phone or DSLR camera and create perfectly good results.

Will they be professional quality? No. Will it take more time and effort to create something that looks even close to professional quality? Sure! But that’s the trade off of DIY photography. Professional photography should still be seen as a luxury, for special occasions, and something to treasure. The world of photography has become more accessible than ever before and I think that is a wonderful thing, but it should not devalue the education, training, and creativity of professional photographers.

Everyone deserves great photos, and professional photographers deserve a living wage – something that cheap and free photos simply cannot provide. I encourage all photographers to know their worth, believe in themselves, and charge according to their cost of doing business (which includes their salary), not according to how others are charging or how much random clients have said to charge.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jesicason.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/jesicasonphotography
• Facebook: facebook.com/jesicasonphotography