We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah N. Jackson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah N. , thanks for taking the time to share your stories 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?

In February 2022 I went full time in Photography and Real Estate. Prior to that I had been a server and bartender at various restaurants around the Chicago suburbs and eventually Coachella Valley. I had a total of 18 years in that industry and I was very comfortable there.

The global pandemic changed my entire life. Due to the shutdown my manager, Mollie Casey, from the last restaurant I worked at switched gears and went into vacation property management. Meanwhile I was getting my real estate license. She recruited me to Homestead Modern in Yucca Valley. I was part of a large period of growth and created a quality assurance program to keep each vacation home up to standard. It was a great paying job with lots of freedom and autonomy, which I have found to be essential. I worked there for a year but ultimately decided that it would be better to free up all of my hours to work on my photography business and real estate. The potential for future income made that decision pretty easy.

In 2022 I had my best year in photography and real estate but I had to work really hard for it. It was hard to have hardly any days off because I had spent the previous 4 years working full time while also building my photography reputation / skills/ clientele. During that time I had two small children who are now 7 and 10- still pretty small. It was just a lot, but I felt that if I went back to a regular job I would lose the freedom I enjoyed in being my own boss. Then another life changing event happened- an unexpected pregnancy at age 39. Our surprise baby is now 6 months old. She is amazing and needs a lot of my time.

Most of the time I am so thankful to have freedom. I am free to breastfeed my child while editing photos or sending emails. I can stop to play with her and enjoy her. I can stop to cook myself a healthy lunch and watch an episode of Yellowstone or The Office- just because I want to and I can. I stop working every weekday at 2:30pm to go get my big kids from school and some days we get home and I continue working for a little while. Some days I turn it off for the rest of the day, or some days I turn it off until they go to bed and then work all night. My schedule can be whatever my kids and clients need it to be and that is a wonderful thing.

There are busy times when I forget about myself. That is why I occasionally wish I was not my own boss so that days off and having hours where I can turn off work would be a given. Currently it’s very hard to achieve either of those things and I’m dead tired. On top of that there is the business aspect- keeping future business in the works, getting all of the editing done, negotiating contracts and pricing, website updates, bookkeeping, and the taxes. I have not filed my taxes in two years because it is overwhelming and one of the many things on my long to-do list. Still the freedom of running my own business tops all of the challenges. It also helps that photography lights my soul on fire.

Sarah N. , 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 am into hiking, birds, stargazing, video games, coffee and real life. When I say real life- I mean that I am tired of social media and I am not one to pretend my life is a highlight reel with no challenges. If I had to choose one word to describe myself it would be honest. It has given me a small circle of friends who are also honest and want to grow. I have been married to my husband Shaun for 12 years and we have been together for 17 years in October.

We met in Chicago where I moved after high school. I grew up in southern California and really enjoyed the change of pace in Chicago. The people were so different and my group of friends was also so much more diverse. My experiences there really shaped the person I am today. Shaun and I got married here in Palm Springs and spent our honeymoon here as well. During our time we decided it seemed like a great place to live and we went home to Chicago and packed up our things and moved. It was a daring move, and one of the best decisions we have ever made. I love Palm Springs!

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

During my 18 years in the restaurant industry, I also dabbled in sales. Being a server is sales absolutely and I was a total expert on that. I also worked for Career Education Corporation in inside sales, and Auto Trader Magazine in outside sales. Those experiences gave me expertise on how to treat my clients and how to maintain our relationship. Each year I take a lot of time writing a personalized email to each of my past clients, and the list grows every year. I write a few sentences about how I enjoyed their session, and some specifics on their family. Then I thank them for their business and include a link to my newsletter. The newsletter always has some personal updates, a community feature, and a recipe from my kitchen. I truly do appreciate each client, as they are what puts food on my table and money for all of the other things. Not only is a personal email deserved, but it is worth taking the time to do it because I received many bookings because of those emails. I also enjoy writing them and reminiscing about each client’s session.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I started in family photography, and it is still a big part of my business today. I found that having multiple smaller shoots, as opposed to bigger high dollar shoots means that I have to travel so much more. Traveling takes a lot of time away from my home life. The kids and my husband are the reason I work so hard, and they deserve a lot of my time. Also having time for me also makes me so much better at being a wife and a mom. For those reasons I have been striving to achieve a better work life balance. The answer to my problem has been to pivot to weddings. Not only do I love romance and opportunities for creativity, but the income is like 4 family photo shoots or more and I only have to travel once. The rest of the work can be done from home while the kids are at school or asleep. It took many years to build up the skills and confidence to take on weddings. They are certainly more stressful than family photo sessions, but the end result is really wonderful and it feels new and exciting to me. Top perk- usually at weddings they feed me! If I miss anything about working in restaurants it is the food.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sarahnicolephoto.com
• Instagram: sarah.nicole.photo
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.nicole.photog
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sarah-nicole-photo-desert-hot-springs