We were lucky to catch up with Kim Kennedy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kim, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

When my husband and I bought Sissy from the previous owner in 2022. We fell in love with the idea of going to weddings all the time. We loved our wedding so much that we decided Sissy was just what we needed. So we set goals for our solid year of having her. Yes I talk about Sissy like she is a person. Our goal is 50 bookings in our first year. We are almost there! We are currently at 32 bookings this year. Marketing Sissy on Social Media has helped us out a bunch. But what really gets us bookings are the current clients that we have. Our customers have spread the word about how great their experience was. The best feeling is hearing from your past clients and they tell you they still look at their album all the time! It makes it worth everything. We also have been able to help a few brides last minute with booking a photobooth. This helps show that we can make it happen even if its less then a week away. We work very well under stress. We strive to make every experience a great one! Sissy is so fun and unique. We customize her every event to match her to the theme of the event. We attend Open Houses that we have been invited to. We tend to get 2 to 5 bookings at each one of the Open Houses that Sissy has gone to. We also reach out to venues and introduce ourselves. Building relationships with the venues has been very helpful to get our name out there. We have became a preferred vendor for about 5 venues in our area. I would love to see that number go up as well. Sissy has been great for us to work together and spend time together.

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?

We are Kim and James Kennedy. We got married in 2021 and we have 4 kids. Three of our kids are graduated and we are about to become empty nesters. I started working for Sissy in the summer of 2022. The previous owner decided she wanted to sell Sissy. She offered her to us! We jumped on it. I could not imagine passing that opportunity up. The best part that came out of Sissy is I also gained a life long friend. The previous owner and I had gotten so close she asked me to come work for her in her new Baby Boutique. We stay very busy between my husband working a full time job and our two business we run. Some how we make it work. I think what sets us apart from other photobooths is that Sissy will not take up space in a venue. Also I think what else separates us from others is that we decorate the inside and out according to your taste. I am very proud of our growth. I check our followers each month. We increase each month. I also love seeing the smiles on all of our guest faces. Sissy is a one of a kind. I want our followers to know that you will not be disappointed with Sissy. We have never had a bad experience at any event we have been to. Other then the rain. That is probably the most challenging. I dread rainy days when Sissy is booked. I just want the clients’ guest to have a good experience,

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I ended up quitting my full time job to pursue my dreams of working for myself. I wanted to be at home more with our kids. I ended up starting my own photography company and now co-own it with my husband. He seen how much fun I was having and decided to pick up a camera. So now he is my second shooter. Then came along Sissy. We have always had a dream of getting into the wedding business. We bought Sissy and ran with it. We have been non stop all year it seems. But we enjoy it so much. Our goal is to not stop at just Sissy, We would like to own our own Wedding Venue. That is the ultimate goal. We would like to pass Sissy on to one of our kids. We want our wedding venue to be a family owned venue.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I joined a ton of bridal pages in surrounding counties. I scroll through them constantly to see if there are any brides searching for a photobooth. I usually post a picture of Sissy so that way they can see she is not your average photobooth. I also share post on our social media 3 to 5 times a week. I heard people are more likely to remember you as a business if you share on social media that many times a week. It defiantly has helped us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sissycamper.com
• Instagram: Sissy the Photo Camper
• Facebook: Sissy the Photo Camper