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

Hi Joy, thanks for joining us today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?

As a travelholic but also a workaholic, I’ve found it really difficult to step away from my business to take a vacation. I don’t yet have a team of hired employee’s that can manage tasks while I’m away. And for a while, even the trips that I did take would wind up becoming work related, as I do photography and content creation for small businesses through Create Joy Media as well as outdoor and travel influencing for myself at A Jaunt With Joy. It’s so easy to slip into wanting to bring my client’s products and props to shoot content of while I’m adventuring to cool locations! And because I genuinely enjoy what I do for my business, it’s hard sometimes to put the phone or the camera down while on a trip, to put a pause on work, and to just enjoy having a real vacation.

I’ve learned more over the years on how to best prioritize my mental health, and stepping away for a vacation every now and then is easily the best method for me to feel rejuvenated. I always feel the most inspired when I travel or go spend time in nature. My creative spark is reignited and I come back feeling so much less burnt out. You don’t have to go abroad either and do some big trip. Sometimes all you need to reset your mind is to go on a hike, take a day trip, go explore one town over, or do a staycation. I promise the benefits for your business are worth it.

Joy, 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’m Joy and I started what later became called “Create Joy Media” through my personal IG account @thejoynextdoor. I provide photography, short form video, and social media management services for small businesses and outdoor brands. I’ve had a camera in my hand since I was 5, stealing my parent’s disposable camera’s and wasting all their film on blurry pictures of neighborhood dogs. I got my first DSLR in high school, taking my first paid photo gigs of my friends senior portraits and backyard weddings and selling nature prints. I took photo classes and watched youtube tutorials on the side throughout earning my college degree in Wildlife Biology, and did photography as a hobby for years, using my photo’s as content for a travel and outdoor adventure blog I started while working seasonally as a wildlife biologist and cruise ship crew. Eight years ago, I moved to Sacramento, CA and continued creating content, highlighting local small businesses, restaurants, and coffee shops on my personal instagram account, and hikes and destinations on my travel account.

I grew a Sacramento online community and was constantly networking with small biz, tagging them in photos and being invited to media events to feature their businesses. Eventually I was offered a job with a local coffee shop taking monthly photo’s of their products, menu items, cafe’s and more. And then I started helping out with their social media management! At the time I was overworking myself as a kennel attendant and social media manager at a doggie daycare while trying to run my own accounts and doing odd jobs and portraits on the side. My dream situation has always been to work for myself, so I decided I would try cutting back on my doggie daycare hours and start offering month-to-month photo, TikTok, and Reels services to other small businesses too. I gained a few more local clients and had a lot of opportunities for growth in Sacramento!

My boyfriend is a national park ranger and had been doing seasonal park work around the US until he then was offered a permanent park position — across the country in the great smoky mountains of Tennessee. We made the decision to take the job and move to a small town there. I was honestly terrified of having to leave all of the connections I had made in Sacramento and to start all over again in a new area. I wondered how I would be able to fit into this new community and if my pricing would be accepted and how my income would be affected. The move luckily hard launched me into working fully remote and for myself. I was even gratefully able to continue working with may of my Sacramento clients! It’s been a tough transition but also a blessing in disguise for my business as it forced me to take it seriously and rely on figuring it out or else.

Through my past jobs and experiences in travel and highlighting my city on my own accounts, I realized my love for working alongside small businesses and often encouraged my audience to shop small, noting the importance of supporting local businesses rather than big chains and corporations. My bread and butter became promoting local coffee shops (if you see me around, there’s a 90% chance I’m holding a seasonal latte from a Iocal cafe). Through managing my accounts as well as my clients, I’ve learned a lot about growing multiple brands with different niches, building an organic engaged community of like-minded followers, and calling in your customers with fun content.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I grew a Sacramento online community and was constantly networking with small biz, tagging them in photos and being invited to media events to feature their businesses. Eventually I was offered a job with a local coffee shop taking monthly photo’s of their products, menu items, cafe’s and more. And then I started helping out with their social media management! At the time I was overworking myself as a kennel attendant and social media manager at a doggie daycare while trying to run my own accounts and doing odd jobs and portraits on the side. My dream situation has always been to work for myself, so I decided I would try cutting back on my doggie daycare hours and start offering month-to-month photo, TikTok, and Reels services to other small businesses too. I gained a few more local clients and had a lot of opportunities for growth in Sacramento!

My boyfriend is a national park ranger and had been doing seasonal park work around the US until he then was offered a permanent park position — across the country in the great smoky mountains of Tennessee. We made the decision to take the job and move to a small town there. I was honestly terrified of having to leave all of the connections I had made in Sacramento and to start all over again in a new area. I wondered how I would be able to fit into this new community and if my pricing would be accepted and how my income would be affected. The move luckily hard launched me into working fully remote and for myself. I was even gratefully able to continue working with may of my Sacramento clients! It’s been a tough transition but also a blessing in disguise for my business as it forced me to take it seriously and rely on figuring it out or else.

I had such a strong community in Sacramento; fellow photographer and content creating friends, plenty of photog/influencer meetups and networking opportunities, etc. Moving across the country to a state where we don’t know anyone and to a small town without as many meetups or creatives or chances to make friends has been a tough transition. It can often feel isolating and lonely at times when you work remotely or for yourself. I’ve found the importance of working from coffee shops in my new town to get out of the house and have even discovered a local entrepreneurial center that hosts a monthly social hour. I’ve joined a few facebook groups for photographers in a nearby bigger city and have decided that if there aren’t many networking events here, I would create my own! So I’ve set up a few events for fellow photographers, creatives, and social media managers to come together to meet and mingle. If there are no opportunities sometimes you just need to be the one to create them!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of doing photography, short form video, and social media management for small businesses is seeing them get buzz around town within their community, and creating fun content that winds up bringing in customers to their shops that become regulars. Cultivating communities of like-minded people and bringing them together over a shared love of coffee or food or whatever the small businesses niche is, is one of my favorite things to watch happen. I love bringing people together and highlighting local biz through my services and then having people discover a new-to-them business for the first time and watching people experience new things they wind up loving. If I can create an instagram reel for a cafe, making their summer affogato’s look incredibly delicious and beautiful, and people see that reel and choose to go try them out, and it winds up becoming their new favorite treat or their new go-to spot…that makes me unreasonably giddy lol.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ajauntwithjoy.myportfolio.com/work
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejoynextdoor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/createjoymedia
• Other: I’ve been growing my IG @thejoynextdoor and this is how I first started getting clients and where I was doing business up until 6 months ago when I finally moved to TN and came up with a NAME for my services, and started a separate IG account for it. So this account is newer but it is my business account now : https://www.instagram.com/createjoymedia/

Image Credits
@klyphotography and @createjoymedia