We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lily McGregor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Lily, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?
I think about this all the time! I am constantly evaluating how owning a business works impacts my personal life. Having worked for someone else prior to being an entrepreneur, I can say that the worlds couldn’t be more different. Each have their pros and cons. I find that I focus on these differences most during major life events. When I became pregnant with our son, we had to really sit down and figure out what our personal and professional life would look like.
Owning and operating a business requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice. You have to be comfortable with taking risks and playing the long game. This means that your mental load is off the charts a lot of the time. As any parent will tell you, parenting is a 24 hour-a-day gig. This can lead to a feeling of burning the candle at both ends if you don’t manage your workload well and compartmentalize work when you are at home. In this case, having a traditional job sounds really attractive!
On the flip side, owning and operating a business means that you have the flexibility to control aspects of your professional life that is typically not afforded to you in the traditional workplace. This means that if I want to take a vacation, I can work my schedule around it. If our son has after-school activities, I can make sure we can attend. If I don’t want to be open on a particular day of the week, I don’t have to be. You get the idea.
I was able to take a longer maternity leave after our son was born and I changed my working schedule to make sure that I could pick him up from day care when I preferred. As he has grown, we are able to evolve our workloads to make sure he is the priority. That means limiting weekend working hours as much as possible, one of us is always home when leaves for school and he comes off the bus. Just these few examples show me how much value I can place on owning a business versus a traditional job.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Lily McGregor, a photographer and graphic artist. At Lily McGregor Photography, our team strives to give a personal, community-focused experience to each of our clients. We specialize in portraiture, servicing families, schools, and sports teams. Our services include photography and various design-based products that make us a “one stop shop” for many of our long-standing clients.
We are proud to be have been serving our local community since 2009, and we love being a part of so many milestones and memories!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Our business was founded out of necessity and was totally unplanned! Shortly after my husband and I got married, the company we were working for dissolved. We were scrambling! We freelanced, taking everything we could get, while trying to reconnect with the contacts we had gathered while working at our former employer. After being approached for two major contracts, we created our business officially and never looked back. That was in 2009, and we are still going strong.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
It is important to have consistent communication. In our niche, it is most important for the same person to be the point of contact. This way, we can understand the concerns and interests of our clients and know the best way to service them. While our business has grown, we still maintain our own client relationships as owners – not just delegating those clients to other team members. Our goal is to maintain that personal touch and demonstrate that we are listening and being attentive.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lilymcgregorphotography.com
- Instagram: @lilymcgphoto
